is the privilege of every believer to be wholly sanctified, and to love God with all his heart in the present life; but at every stage of Christian experience there is danger of falling from grace, which danger is to be guarded against by watchfulness, prayer, and a life of faith in the Son of God.” This quotation from the catechism of the Church raises the question in what sense and to what extent it is to be accepted as one of the Methodist doctrinal standards. Dr. Schaff † assigns to it conspicuous authority as one of them. 259 of ¶ the Discipline makes it "the duty of our preachers to enforce faithfully upon parents and Sunday-school teachers the great importance of instructing children in the doctrines and duties of our holy religion; to see that our catechisms be used as extensively as possible in our Sunday-schools and families," etc. The language of this section evidently conveys the impression that the catechism contains a summary of all the essential doctrines of Christianity as held by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The General Conference of 1848 intended that it should be so when that body ordered its preparation. Their instructions were carried out by the Rev. Dr. Kidder, assisted by other divines, and their work was approved and adopted by the General Conference of 1852. The series Nos. 1, 2, 3, does not consist of three separate catechisms, but of one, in three stages of development, the language of the basis being unchanged in the different numbers. No. 3 presents something like a system of Christian doctrine in condensed form, and is designed " for an advanced grade of study." This summary of Church doctrines enjoys the acceptance of the Methodist Episcopal Church, represented by the General Conference, and its use is obligatory, "as extensively as possible," upon ministers and members. Assuredly the Church has not spoken in any uncertain tones about her doctrinal beliefs. She has nothing to conceal, no set of opinions for private study and ministerial subscription, and one altogether different for pulpit use and prudential ministration. What she believes is proclaimed with fervid boldness. The Catechism is as explicit as, and infinitely more credible than, the Westminster Confession and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms. Nor did the General Conference of 1852 exceed the limits "History of Creeds," p. 882. of constitutional authority in the approving adoption of the catechism, for it neither revoked, altered, nor changed our Articles of Religion, nor established "any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and estab lished standards of doctrine." All the definitions of the catechism are in concord with the Methodist consensus of creed, commentary, treatise, and discourse; nor has any Methodist preacher the legal right to impugn or attack them, unless he can show their dissensus from the other standards. ART. III.-SHAKESPEARE: HIS WORKS AND HIS EDITORS. The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare. Revised by GEORGE STEVENS 20 vols., Folio. London: Printed by W. Bulmer & Co.. Shakespeare Printing Office. For John and Josiah Boydell, George and W. Nichol. From the Types of W. Martin. 1802. LIPS. The Works of William Shakespeare. In Reduced Facsimile. From the Famous Edited with Notes by WILL- The Works of William Shakespeare. The Text Revised by Rev. ALEXANDER DYCE. In Nine Volumes. Third Edition, 8vo. cadilly. 1875. London: Chapman & Hall, 193 Pic The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare. With a Glossary. A New Edition, Corrected and Improved. 8vo, pp. 1124. London: Henry G. Bohn. 1863. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. From the Original Text. Carefully Collated and Compared with the Editions of Halliwell, Knight, and Collier. With Historical and Critical Introduction and Notes to each Play; and a Life of the Great Dramatist, by CHARLES KNIGHT. 3 vols., Royal 8vo, pp. 1725. New York: Johnson, Wilson & Co. CRITICS have spoken at times extravagantly of Shakespeare's songs and sonnets. There is much that is admirable in both; but the gems which give to "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" their radiant beauty are not the foundations on which his fame is built. If he had only sung in these songs and charmed in these sonnets he would never have "lifted us over all seas and mountains "—he would never have taken us, as he has, to the very summit of the highest heaven of genius-inspired and genius-inspiring rapture. Shakespeare's fame, undying, overwhelming, transforming, radiates. from the dramatic portions of his works: his thirtyfive or thirty-seven well-authenticated plays. These are usually divided into three divisions: comedies, historical, and tragedies. By whom this division was first made we know not. It is not, we think, the happiest arrangement that might have been devised. It is not a sufficiently discriminating one. There are histories that are also tragedies, and tragedies in which the soberest facts of history are mixed with comic elements of the broadest kind. The idea of the framer of this plan seems to have been that a play in which the events issue happily for the principal characters, must, for that reason, be regarded as a comedy, whereas a play the events of which come to a calamitous issue must, therefore, be regarded as a tragedy. In like manner, one in which the events happen in chronological order must be historical, though it might not be distinct from. either tragedy or comedy. In noticing these divisions we will reverse the order in which they have been nained. The thirteen tragedies are to be distinguished from the other plays by their continuous sublimity and massive grandeur. Of these tragedies, ten are associated with countries. which, so far as is known, Shakespeare never visited. Two of these, "King Lear" and "Cymbeline," belong to English history, and one, "Macbeth," has its scenes in Scotland. In "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Othello," and "King Lear," we have an illustration of Shakespeare's power in unveiling and depicting the baser, the most unlovable, of human passions. In "King Lear," Taine tells us, "we have curses more than sufficient for all the madmen in an asylum and for all the oppressed of earth. Lear was the subject of ungrateful, savage, and diabolical cruelty in an age when vice reigned with lawless and gigantic power. He is a picture of human misery that has never been surpassed, and as an illustration of disordered reason, a portraiture beyond all reach of rivalry." The dreaded suspicion that he was becoming insane dawns upon him in the midst of a dreadful tempest. Kent finds him on the heath in front of a hovel : Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: The tyranny of the open night's too rough For nature to endure. Good my lord, enter. Lear. Thou think'st 't is much that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin; so 't is to thee; But where the greater malady is fix'd The lesser is scarce felt. Thou 'dst shun a bear; But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea, When the mind's free The body's delicate; the tempest in my mind He then curses the ingratitude of his daughters, and exclaims: But I will punish home: No, I will weep no more. In such a night To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure:— In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril! Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,— No more of that! * "Troilus and Cressida," "Julius Caesar," "Coriolanus," "Timon of Athens," and "Pericles" are based upon Greek and Roman histories, as is "Antony and Cleopatra." The characters included in these plays have been limned by Plutarch and Homer; but in neither case do they bear the slightest comparison with the same characters as drawn by Shakespeare. He individualizes them as neither the historian or poet had the ability to do. This is remarkably apparent in the play of "Julius Cæsar." We feel that Cassius, Brutus, Caesar, and Antony are living men. They stand and speak in our presence as only real men can. The play is intended to be an artistic development of the motives that influenced Brutus to aid in the assassination of Caesar, and of the result of that action. "Brutus is," says Swinburne, "the very noblest figure of a typical republican in all the literature of the world." As in "Julius Cæsar" so in "Coriolanus." The principal character is not of Plutarch's painting. Plutarch makes Coriolanus to have been a cold, haughty patrician. Shakespeare's Coriolanus is a coarse soldier, a man of the people. He is an "King Lear," Act iii, Scene iv. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXV.—4 athlete. He has a voice like a trumpet. He is proud and terrible. A lion's soul in the body of a steer.* He fights and drinks, and drinks and fights again. His military prowess is unrivaled. His character is severely sublime. He has an undisguised contempt for every thing base, vulgar, pusillanimous. It has been affirmed that "Macbeth" is the greatest effort of the poet's genius, and that it is the most sublime and imposing drama the world has ever seen. In the opinion of the profoundest critics, Macbeth is represented as being too great and good to fall under common temptations; hence supernatural agencies are employed to subvert him. He is exposed to the suggestions of hell on the one side, and to those of his fiendlike wife on the other. Originally brave, magnanimous, gentle, he falls a prey to the idea of FATE. This was first suggested by the weird sisters. To this suggestion was added the ferocious and sarcastic eloquence of Lady Macbeth. She clothes with splendor the issue of the deed; she taunts him with cowardice and irresolution; and, maddened, he rushes into the snare. As soon as the deed is done, conscience awakes. It accuses and condemns him. Horrified, he becomes the victim of agonizing remorse. He feels that he is deserted by God and man. With what wonderful dramatic power does Shakespeare depict the beginning of Macbeth's misery. As soon as the murder was committed, Macbeth rushes into the presence of Lady Macbeth, and falters out: Macbeth. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? Macbeth. This is a sorry sight. Looking on his hands.) Macbeth. There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried, " Mur ther!" That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them : Again to sleep. Lady Macbeth. There are two lodg'd together. Amen" the other; as they had seen me with these hangman's hands, Listening their fear. I could not say "Amen," When they did say, "God bless us !" *Taine. |