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principle, that no servant is bound to please his master by doing what is wrong:

Every good servant does not all commands:

No bond, but to do just ones.

Act v. Sc. 1.

SECT. 9. Of Charity and Mercifulness.

If we are to lay a solid foundation of moral duty, we must first learn to entertain a just abhorrence of its opposite. O ye that love the Lord, see that ye hate the thing that is evil.' Ps. xcvii. 10. Thus of the Ten Commandments, not only the three first, but the five last also, are all couched in the negative form, as though the prohibition of vice was designed to form the foundation of virtue. And thus, too, we learn, even from a heathen poet

Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima

Stultitiâ caruisse ;

the beginning of Virtue is to flee Vice, and the beginning of Wisdom to have escaped from Folly.

In this and the four next sections I propose to test the teaching of Shakspeare by this rule; and, following the order of the second table of the moral law, to show how, after the model of Scripture, he would teach us (1) from the prohibition of murder to build up the grace of charity; (2) from the prohibition of adultery to build up the grace of chastity and sobriety; (3) from the prohibition of stealing to build up the grace of honesty; (4) from

the prohibition of false witness to build up the grace of truth; and (5) from the prohibition of covetousness to build up the grace of contentment.

The subject then of this section corresponds with the scope of the sixth Commandment, as developed by our Lord in His sermon on the mount.

In K. Richard III. Clarence thus speaks to one of the men who were sent by Gloster to murder him in the Tower :

Erroneous vassal! The great KING OF KINGS*
Hath in the Table of His law commanded
That thou shalt do no murder; wilt thou then
Spurn at His edict, and fulfill a man's?

Take heed; for He holds vengeance in His hand,
To hurl upon their heads that break His law.

Act i. Sc. 4.

And so (according to the teaching of Scripture in Genesis ix. 6, Num. xxxv. 16) we read in Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4, Blood will have blood." Compare the speech of Bolingbroke, in King Richard II. quoted above, p. 59, and of the senator in Timon of Athens:

Friend, or brother,

He forfeits his own blood, that spills another:

Act iii. Sc. 5.

except, indeed, it be in self-defence—an exception which Alcibiades argues in that same scene :—

upon

To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;
But in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just :-

See above, p. 101.

that is, as Dr. Johnson explains it, I call mercy herself to witness that defensive violence is just.'

There is, however, a well-known passage in Hamlet in which our poet has not scrupled to exhibit his hero, not only as prepared to take blood for blood by private assassination, but as resolving to defer the act only out of a refinement of revenge,' with the view of securing, at the same time, as far as possible, the everlasting perdition of the murderer. And Johnson, accordingly, has condemned the speech-more especially coming, as it does, from a virtuous character '-as one too horrible to be read or to be uttered.' This is a grave charge to bring against our author; and though the commentators in general appear to have acquiesced in it as just, I would venture to offer a few remarks in arrest of so severe a judgFor this purpose it will be necessary to produce at least a portion of the speech alluded to. When the wicked king, in attempting to repent," retires and kneels, Hamlet, entering unobserved, says to himself-with reference to the act of murder which he was contemplating

ment.

Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't:-and so he goes to heaven :-
And so am I revenged? That would↑ be scanned:
A villain kills my father: and, for that,

See above, pp. 162, sq., 187.

†That should be, requires to be well considered.

*

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Why this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown.

I may observe, by the way, that the expression 'full of bread' affords a remarkable instance of Shakspeare's intimate acquaintance with Holy Scripture. I had noticed the parallel to Ezekiel, xvi. 49, and I find that Mr. Malone has done the Hamlet continues:

same.

And am I then revenged

To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No.

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent.*

And he concludes by saying aside to the king

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

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Now, first, I would borrow the observation of Mr. M. Mason, that though this speech of Hamlet's, as Johnson observes, is horrible indeed, yet some moral may be extracted from it, as all his subsequent calamities were owing to this savage refinement of revenge.' But further; it has been pointed out, with great truth, that in times of less civilization revenge was regarded as a sacred duty. more fell and terrible the retributive act meritorious it seems to have been held.

*Hold, seizure.

The

the more The king

himself, in a subsequent scene (Act iv. Sc. 7), when stimulating Laertes to kill Hamlet, says: 'Revenge should have no bounds.' These remarks

are confirmed by many unhappy incidents in our Scotch history. The following is told by Sir Walter Scott, in his Review* of the Culloden Papers :

So deep was this thirst of vengeance impressed on the minds of the Highlanders, that when a clergyman informed a dying chief of the unlawfulness of the sentiment, urged the necessity of his forgiving an inveterate enemy, and quoted the Scriptural expression, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,' the acquiescing penitent said, with a deep sigh-To be sure it is too sweet a morsel for a mortal.' Then added, 'Well, I forgive him, but the deil take you, Donald (turning to his son), if you forgive him!

Other stories are told by Sir Walter to the same effect in the same place, and 'we could add an hundred,' he writes, of that insatiable thirst for revenge which attended northern feuds.' Under 'northern,' we may well include 'Danish ;' especially when we consider the close affinity that existed between this country and Denmark in early times. In like manner, Mr. P. F. Tytler, in his History of Scotland, tells us of the sacred duty of feudal vengeance;' and again, of the deep principle of feudal vengeance which demanded blood for blood;' a principle which he describes, in another place, as so universally felt that it may be regarded almost as the pulse of feudal life.' That our poet

*See Quarterly Review, vol. xiv.
+ See vol. ix. pp. 15, 65, 309.

P

P. 288.

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