equally from servile gain, or glorious osten tation. MASSINGER (Renegado v. 3.) 1624-1630. Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almightie Spright! From whom all guifts of wit and knowledge flow, To shed into my breast some sparkling light Of thine eternall Truth, that I may show Some little beames to mortall eyes below SPENSER (Hymne on Hevenly Beautie) 1597. Then help divine Adonai to conduct Upon the wings of my well tempered verse The hearers minds above the towers of Heaven. PEELE (David and Bathsheba) 1599. That Supernal Judge that stirs good thoughts. SHAKESPEARE (King John 11. 1.) 1623. That Great Supremacy. SHAKESPEARE (Ibid. 111. 1.) That same Essence hath ordained a law. ANON (King John 11. 1) 1591. For what is misery but want of God KYD (Soliman IV. I.) 1599. In the great hand of God I stand. SHAKESPEARE (Macbeth) 1623. Therefore I charge thee by the immortal God That holds the souls of men within His fist. GREENE (Friar Bacon) 1594. Submit you to High Providence And ever in your noble heart prepense SPENSER (Faerie Queene) III. 11.) 1590-1609. O Thou eternal Mover of the Heavens. SHAKESPEARE (Henry VI. III. 1.) 1623. Oh thou Supreme Architect of all, First Mover of those tenfold crystal orbs. ANON (Selimus) 1594. The Eternal framed the firmament. Th' Eternal Power.... The Great Commander of the world Ibid. The King of Kings; the Glorious God of Heaven. ANON (Taming of a Shrew) 1594. Thank'ed be Heaven's great Architect MARLOWE (Edward II.) 1593-1598. Th' Eternal Maker. SPENSER (Faerie Queene III. 4.) 1590-1609. The Highest. The Most High. PEELE (Edward I.) 1593. WEBSTER (Wyatt) 1607. It was regarded by the clergy as their special prerogative to thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord. There are instances on record of unhappy wretches committing suicide in fear of the realistic horrors painted forth by pulpiteers. Buckle attributes the proverbial dourness of Scotch character to the crushing effect of seventeenth century Theology. In The Anatomy of Melancholy Burton severely censures the clergy for making Election, Predestination, and Reprobation the themes of their ordinary discourses, terrifying poor harmless people with threats of damnation; "making every small fault and thing indifferent an irremissable offence, they so rend, tear, and wound men's consciences that they are almost mad and at their wits end." This was not the doctrine that was preached by Bacon, nor by Browne, nor in the playhouses. Here, on the contrary, it was taught that the great attribute of God was pity, not revenge. Mercy is an attribute As high as Justice, an essential part Of his unbounded goodness Whose divine Impression, form, and image, Man should bear. TOURNEUR (Atheists Tragedy III. 4.) 1611. Judges ought (as far as the Law permitteth) in justice to remember Mercy. They should imitate God in whose seat they sit. ... BACON (Essay: Judicature) 1612. The attribute That speaks his Godhead most is merciful: Revenge is proper to the fiends. MASSINGER & DEKKER (Virgin Martyr 11. 1.) 1622. The great Attribute of God, His Mercy. BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (Lover's Progress) But Mercy is above this sceptred sway CHAPMAN (Rev. for Honour iv. 1.) 1654. Be like those powers above, whose place on earth You represent; shew Mercy gracious king For they are merciful MAY (The Heir Iv.) 1620. Kings come near in nature Unto the gods in being touched with pity. ANON (Edward III. v. 1.) 1596. The Godlike part of Kings is to forgive. MARSTON (Sophonisba 11. 2.) 1606. The rigour and extremity of law Is sometimes too, too bitter; but we carry A chancery of pity in our bosom. FORD (Perkin Warbeck 11. 2.) 1634. Fair ey'd pity in his heart did dwell. GREENE (Maiden's Dream.) 1591. He... had an aspect as if he pitied men. BACON (New Atlantis.) 1629. I study pity more than revenge. MASSINGER (The Bondman v. III.) 1623-1624. Kindness, nobler ever than revenge. SHAKESPEARE (A. Y. L. I. IV. 3.) 1623. These extracts are the more remarkable inasmuch as Drummond of Hawthornden in one of his Sonnets affirms that Mercy was banished and Pity dead. All good hath left this age, all tracks of shame; Mercy is banished, and pity dead; ; Justice, from whence it came, to heaven is fled; Religion, maim'd, is thought an idle name; Faith to distrust and malice hath given place; Envy with poison'd teeth hath friendship torn; Renowned knowledge is a despis'd scorn; Now evil 'tis all evil not to embrace : There is no life, save under servile bands To make desert a vassal to their crimes, Ambition with Avarice join hands. O ever-shameful, O most shameless times! Save that sun's light we see, of good hear tell, This earth we court so much were very hell. Another subject upon which the dramatists were strikingly in advance of their contemporaries was Hell and the future state. The orthodox authorities revelled in depicting, an afterworld of "eternal torments, baths of boiling sulphur, vicissitude of fires and then of frosts.' One According to a preacher as late as 1722, the Deity's ingenuity in devising unheard of tortures exceeded man's bald imagination as far as Man's intellect falls short of Omnipotent wisdom. authority maintained Hell to be a material and local fire in the centre of the Earth two hundred miles in diameter. Another argued this local Hell to be far less, "one Dutch mile in diameter all filled with fire and brimstone : " because, as he demonstrates, "that space cubically multiplied will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square) which will abundantly suffice." 1 Against this gross but prevalent conception 1 See Anatomy of Melancholy. Vol. 11, p. 49. York Library. |