and utter disregard to the interests of others manifested by such a vast majority of men. This, too, is often more especially the case when, loaded with the gifts of fortune, they have all the greater opportunities of doing good, if so disposed. So rooted is this principle of selfishness in the human breast, that when a man truly learns to pity those whom fortune has not favoured equally with himself, there is strong reason to hope that a great change has been wrought in him, and that his future life will be on far nobler and wider principles.

It shows the importance that Shakespeare attached to this point that he should have mentioned the sentiment of sympathy with our fellow-men, both in the case of Gloster and of Lear, as one of the first indications of a change to the better, of thinking and feeling.

The sentiment is exactly the same in the collateral passage:

Lear. “ Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these ? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this !

Take physic, pomp ;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.”-- Act III. Scene 4.

IV. POWER OF CONSCIENCE.

Conscience has been well called, "the voice of God in man.' It is conscience, or the power of distinguishing right from wrong, that, even still

more than reason itself, makes the great distinction between man and the brute creation.

The wonderful instinct, indeed, of certain of the lower animals is so marvellous, as very closely to approach to intellect. But there is this conscience still that separates eternally the man and the mere animal. And in proof of this we observe that in some of the human race who have almost lost this great distinction (for instance, the wretched inhabitants of Central Africa) the line of demarcation between the man and the brute is so faint as to be almost imperceptible. But in cases where conscience has been resuscitated, in proportion as it has become þealthy and vigorous, has the individual been raised in the social scale.

It is long, too, before conscience can be entirely stifled. Ever and anon it will break out, and cause itself to be heard above the roar of the tempest, even above the ceaseless clatter of the world. When the tumult has a little subsided, and a moment's quiet snatched from its unending hurry, then there darts into the soul the remembrance of the past and it may be half-forgotten evil, and remains, like an uncured wound, ever festering and green. Thus:Lear.

“ Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue
Thou art incestuous : Caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis'd on man's life !-Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace."-- Act III. Scene 2.

Edm. (Aside.) “I will persevere in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood."-- Act III. Scene 5.

How true to nature! Conscience is, indeed, hard to be mastered, even in the most depraved and abandoned villains, and they are fain to get some pretext or other, which, though it cannot satisfy, may at least quiet the unwelcome reprover. Edmund tries to justify his horrible crime by persuading himself that in murdering his father he is only acting the part of a loyal citizen !

Just so with Goneril and Regan. After their abominable cruelty to their old father, they endeavour by all manner of excuses to persuade themselves that it is owing to his own stubborn self-will, and to no want of filial duty on their part, that he is deprived of a roof under which he may protect his hoary head from the pitiless tempest.

Reg.

6. This house *Is little; the old man and his people cannot Be well bestow'd.” Gon.

“ 'Tis his own blame; he hath put Himself from rest, and must needs taste his folly."— Act II. Scene 4.

How perfect a knowledge of the human heart do not these few lines exhibit! How well the great master understood the doublings and shifts by which evil is fain to hide from its votary its loathsome and deadly nature! Well was it for the drama, in an age when licentiousness and vice in every shape were riding rampant, that there was one so able to explain its nature and its

We do not mean to assert that Shakespeare is the best of Religious Teachers.

We have a far higher and purer standard, along with which Shakespeare must not even be named! But it is sufficient that we have shown he is on the side of virtue, that he has a moral end in his plays, and that his influence is very generally favourable to the great cause of Religion.

ESSAY III.

ON THE

TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR;

QUOTING AND ILLUSTRATING SUCH PASSAGES

AS ALLUDE TO

THE USAGES OF THE TIMES IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE LIVEN.

BY ERNEST ABRAHAM HART.