A right noble specimen was Shakspere of a selfcultured man, whose powers were not quickened and guided by learned professors, mid the inspiring atmosphere which plays through academic halls, but by changing circumstance, the monitor of God, and in the free bracing air of Nature's scenes. He indeed

Found tongues in trees, books by the running brooks;
Sermons in stones, and God in everything.

Not a scholar in the common acceptation of the term, but a diligent reader of books, as is evident from the numerous classical allusions abounding especially in his earlier works; and one who could suck from their leaves the sweets of sweet philosophy. Those words he put into the mouth of Tranio, sound as if they were his own course of education :

Let us be no stoics, nor no stocks I pray,
Or so devote to Aristotle's checks,
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.
Talk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practice rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as your stomach serves you.
No profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en.
In brief, sir, study what you most effect.

There are few self-cultured men who pursue a wide and systematic course of study. Their powers not having been directed in early life into appropriate channels, and finding, when they arrive at manhood, no definite course before them, their studies are desultory, and their efforts fitful and broken. There are exceptions to this rule, but so few that they are exceptions. There was Hugh Miller, who, by happy combination of outward circumstance and inward capacity, found himself, when arrived at manhood, in the sphere and study which suited and served each other, and then did he with joyous alacrity bend the full force of his mighty energies to the way and work which lay far outstretched before him. But it is far otherwise with many. You remember Burns

said that the great misfortune of his life was to want an aim. He had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave. We read, also, that following the advice given him by Mr. Robinson, he commenced to learn Latin, but finding the rudiments dry and uninteresting, he quickly laid them aside. He frequently returned to his rudiments on any little chagrin or disappointment, particularly in his love affairs; but the Latin seldom predominated more than a day or two at a time, or a week at most.

Now the fact of Shakspere's having a little Latin and less Greek, shews that he had commenced but had not prosecuted the study of languages; also, having no definite aim when he arrived at manhood, he would not, we think, carry on a systematic course of training, and would just fall to studies as his "stomach served him," not ignorant, as Lord Bacon remarks, that there is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. We think Shakspere would have been a happier, if not a wiser man, if his mind had been carefully tended in his early years; and if, when he reached the time of calm reflection, he had pursued a course of steady and systematic education; it would have lessened, we think, that deep feeling of despondency with which he was often overwhelmed, and given him that confidence and self-assertion which scholarship ever gives. If he had been more conscious of his power to do a great work, and had determinedly and faithfully set about it, he might have been a greater benefactor of the race. Carlyle says that we have but a very imperfect idea of the powers of Robert Burns, because they only become visible through the chinks of Scottish song. What if those dramas of Shakspere be but the chinks through which his genius shone, shewing, yet shading, his great and sun-like soul. When Burns attained manhood's prime, he found himself a Scottish ploughman, stalking Auld Scotia's mountain sides, or wandering in her glens; his capacious soul drinking in nature's various

scenes of grandeur and of beauty in all their changing aspects of sunshine or of storm, studying in the winter nights his country's glorious history, observing her social customs, and catching inspiration from the ballads of her ancient bards. And then, his swelling soul found an outlet in unmatched, undying songs, yet striving at times for a wider opening through the glorious possibility of a Scottish drama. When Shakspere reached his manhood's prime, and found himself a hangeron, or, an inferior actor in the Globe Theatre, in contact with other minds, engaged in making plays, he felt within him that strong divinity of soul, and poured forth into those marvellous dramas such streams of thought and language, which will remain a joy and a marvel for ever. We know from history, that all his knowledge of ancient learning could be obtained through translations; and that historical and poetical works were to be found in the English tongue. Yet is it not wonderful how he could construct out of such scanty written materials, so magnificent an edifice,-how he could make the dry bones of historical facts re-appear as living forms, and fill their shrunken veins with living blood? History then was a bare and dry narration or collection of facts; history now is beginning to be an elucidation of principles. History then stated effects; history now traces causes. History then gathered the fruit which fell from the tree of human existence; history now seeks to know the laws of its growth. History then noted external movements; history now penetrates to their source. It would be a curious question to consider how much of this change in historical composition is due to the historical dramas of Shakspere. This is at least certain, that passing by a few anachronisms of time and space, we have the most remarkable history of England in Shakspere's dramas. In what other history have we such a life-like representation of the deeds of men? As those dramas pass before us it is as if Shakspere turned back the chronometer of time, and there appeared once more upon

the stage the men and women of former generations.
Nowhere is the chivalrous spirit, with its courtesies and
gallantries, so preserved and exhibited, and nowhere
are more stirring appeals for civil and religious freedom.
His works show that he had diligently studied written
history, and perhaps all books within his reach. But
he as carefully observed what was in the wide world of
nature, and in the characters of living men. He loved
books, but we think he loved nature more.
"He
drank deeply in the soul of things, and became
wise perforce." He held up the mirror to nature;
his mind was a mirror which reflected nature's
every phase and manifestation; his mind was as a
mould, into which there rushed the presentation of
outward things, to be sublimated into forms of thought,
and come forth clothed and preserved in the robes of a
wondrous language. His mind was as a kaleidoscope,
into which were put the materials of knowledge, but
which owed the rich and variegated forms to its internal
structure and power of self-evolution. When walking
along the busy streets of London, his mind would often
turn to the glades in woody Warwickshire, where, years
ago, in the fine moonlight, he had hunted the dappled
deer, and this gave a richness and correctness to all
his pictures of the woodland scenes, which the cribbed
and cabined cockney writers would imitate in vain.
Very fine are those lines in that scene in the "Merchant
of Venice," as illustrative of his quick and loving
appreciation of the beauties of nature, and of his power
of insight into its mysteries:-

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank;
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony,

Sit Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.

There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,
But in his motion like an angel sings;

Still quiring to the young eyed cherubims.

Such harmony is in immortal souls.

But while this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in we cannot hear it.

Innumerable passages might be picked out to show how carefully he observed the objects, and how deeply he studied the harmonies of nature, and also the workings and laws of the human spirit. Many of his thoughts are the germs of ideas circulating in the modern world.

But while we can gather from his writings that he studied man, nature, and books, we also find that his works are full of what I would call the Christian spirit. There are many touches true to nature, many passages charged with a lofty patriotism; but there are more passages warmed and lighted up with the glow of a genial and loving Christian sentiment. Without Christianity Shakspere would not have written as he did. His works are deeply marked with Scriptural allusions, and baptised in the streams of Scripture truth. Christianity does not merely shine in Shakspere's works as a slight and superficial gilding, it is an integral part, the animating spirit of the whole. Shakspere may not, at the date of many of his dramas, have come under the peculiar power of the spirit of truth; but he could not escape from the influence of Christianity, which, like the air, permeated and affected all places throughout England to a greater or lesser degree. Christianity burst through society like a stream of molten granite, not only melting and changing the channels through which it flowed, but altering to a certain extent the condition of circumjacent strata.

While I hazard no opinion as to whether Shakspere was or was not a Christian in the strict and true meaning of the term, I will venture to remark that he was not a disbeliever in revealed religion. While he may at times have looked upon truth "askance and strangely;" while he may have gone down into deep waters where there was no firm footing, or gloomily trod along the margin of the dark confines of death and despair, yet there are indications of mind awakened to the realities of the invisible world, of a conscience keenly sensitive to moral delinquencies, of a heart which at times turned tremblingly towards Him, the