Surrey and of their disciples. An impartial examination of Shakespeare's writings will, we believe, make clear that Shakespeare was no "product of the Reformation."

"1

First, consider one of his chief poetic characteristics, his imagery. It is only by symbols that the poet's theme, the spiritual, the ideal, the supersensuous, finds expression; and of all poets, Shakespeare is perhaps the richest in his creative power. He has a figure, a metaphor for every thought; his images seem to come spontaneously and to express exactly their maker's idea. He speaks himself as if these operations of his phantasy were produced in a kind of ecstasy.

"The poet's eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth

The form of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name."

-Midsummer Night's Dream, v. I.

Now, much of his imagery is drawn from religious subjects; of what kind, then, is it? He was perfectly free to choose either the new creed or the old, for he never allowed himself to be hampered by dramatic conventionalities, and he frequently commits glaring anachronisms. We find, then, that

1 "And remark here as rather curious, that Middle Age Catholicism was abolished as far as Acts of Parliament could abolish it, before Shakespeare, the noblest product of it, made his appearance."-Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship.

CATHOLIC IMAGERY

I I

the object of his predilection is the ancient faith, and he introduces the Church of Rome, her ministers and doctrines and rites, not, after the manner of Spenser, as a type of falsehood and corruption, nor like Marlowe and Greene, as the symbol of exploded superstition, but as the natural representative of things high, pure, and true, and therefore to be treated with reverence and respect. Take, for example, his illustration, drawn from vestments, of how royalty enhances its dignity by habitual seclusion; and remember that, when he wrote, vestments were being publicly burnt, as has been said, for popish, massing, idolatrous stuff.

"Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,
My presence like a robe pontifical,
Ne'er seen but wondered at; and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast,
And won by rareness such solemnity."

-I Henry IV., iii. 2.

The same idea is expressed in the Sonnets, where he compares, and in the same religious tone, the visits of his beloved in their rareness and worth to great feasts, precious pearls, and costly robes:

"Therefore are Feasts so solemn and so rare
Since seldom coming in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain-jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe does hide,
To make some special instant special blest
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride."

-Sonnet cii.

The readiness and aptitude with which he avails himself of Catholic imagery are manifested again and again. He puts before us temples, altars, priests, friars, nuns, the mass, sacrifices, patens of gold, chalices, incense, relics, holy crosses, the invocation of saints and angels, the sign of the cross, the sacraments of baptism, penance, holy eucharist, extreme unction, details of the ritual, as for instance the Benedictio Thalami. All these and many other Catholic rites and usages are introduced with a delicacy and fitness possible only for a mind habituated to the Church's tone of thought. Nay more, when he is recasting an anti-Catholic play, as in the case of "King John," he is careful to expunge the ribald stories against Nuns and Friars, notwithstanding the popularity of such tales with the audiences of the time. He drew indeed from the new creed his Falstaff, Malvolio, and Holofernes, types of the hypocrite, the canting knave, the pedant, but turned to the ancient faith for his images of what was noble and sacred.

The other chief source of Shakespeare's imagery was Nature itself. There are, broadly speaking two views of Nature-the Catholic, the Protestant. What may be the Protestant view at the present day is perhaps difficult to determine, for Protestantism is fluctuating and manifold. But the Protestantism of Shakespeare's day was clearly defined. Nature was a synonym for discord. Man through his fall was in essential discord with God; the

PROTESTANTISM AND NATURE

13

lower world was in discord with man. The Redemption had brought no true healing of this rupture; for salvation was wrought, not by internal restoration, but by mere outward acceptance. Saint and sinner were intrinsically alike. In saint as in sinner there was, to use the words of a reformed confession of faith, "an intimate, profound, inscrutable, and irreparable corruption of the entire nature, and of all the powers, especially of the superior and principal powers of the soul." The saint, a sinner in his nature and his powers, is a sinner also in all his works, for the products of corruption must be themselves corrupt. His corruption is subjective and intrinsic; his justification is objective and extrinsic. He has apprehended by faith the merits of Christ, and God no longer imputes the sin that is truly there. Nor will God impute to him the sinfulness of his works, so long as by faith he continues to apprehend the saving merits of Christ. But the essential corruption of his nature always remains. The lower world is as divorced from man as man has become divorced from God. The destiny of inferior creatures had been a higher one than that of ministering to the earthly needs of man. Their office had been to speak to him of God, to inspire him with the love of God, to be as the steps of a ladder which leads the soul to

1 Solida Declaratio, i. 31. The Solida Declaratio drawn up (1577) after Luther's death was the authorised Lutheran Confession of Faith.

God. But their power of appeal has vanished. The mind of man has grown darkened; he cannot see in creatures the beauty of Him that made them. The will of man has grown hardened; he can no longer see in creatures the bounty and goodness of the Lord. Creatures can teach man no moral lesson, for man is no longer a moral being. His freedom of will has left him; his instincts are all towards vice. Nature can only find food for his passions and minister to the vices of his fallen estate.

Catholicism, on the other hand, presents a picture the reverse of this. Man has indeed forfeited his supernatural estate by sin; but his nature though fallen remains unchanged; and every creature by nature is good, and by grace man can and does recover his supernatural condition. From God all things proceed, and to Him they return by obedience to His law and by the mutual offices they respectively discharge. No creature is a separate or independent unit, but each is in a necessary relation and correspondence with its fellows. From the lowest to the highest, all things in their genera, classes, kingdoms are in an ascending scale, in which the lower order ministers to the higher, and is ennobled thereby.

From which point of view does Shakespeare regard nature? He dwells at times on its fairness. He can speak of the glorious morn

"Kissing with golden face the meadow green,

Bathing the pale stream with heavenly alchemy."