The nurse thinks the contrary, and says to Aaron-
The Empress sends it theo, thy stamp, thy seal;
And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.

Aaron. Out, out, you whore! is black so base a hue ?
Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.

As they are not any of them Christians; and if they may be supposed, as was likely, to be acquainted with that faith, the allusion to christening is putting in the mouths of pagans a sarcasm on Christianity. Here at once Shakspere clicits a noble quality, a redeeming touch, in the character of Aaron, which, coupled with bravery, and the justness of the sentiments, make the reader sympathise for a moment with the man. Demetrius says—

I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point:

Nurse, give it me, my sword shall soon dispatch it.

Aaron. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.
Stay, murtherous villains, will you kill your brother?
Demetrius. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus ?
Aar. My mistress is my mistress; this, myself;
The vigour, and the picture of my youth:
This, before all the world, do I prefer;
This, maugre all the world, will I keep safe,
Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.

Chiron. I blush to think upon this ignomy.

Aar. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears :
Fie, treacherous hue! that will betray with blushing
The close enacts and counsels of the heart:
Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.

Look, how the black slave smiles upon the father;

As who should say, 'Old lad, I am thine own.'

He is your brother, lords; sensibly fed

Of that self-blood that first gave life to you:

And, from that womb, where you imprison'd were,
He is enfranchised and come to light:

Nay, he's your brother by the surer side,
Although my seal be stamped in his face.

The love of offspring natural to all mankind, as strong in the black as in the white, is here made stronger in the Moor father than in the Gothic mother. Shakspere, as Sir Charles Morgan, appears to explain the philosophy of parental love in the father as consisting in egotism, as arising from the

first feeling of being a father and having a son, rather than in the after consideration which ensues through these relations. Nevertheless, Aaron's paternal feelings overpower all other interests of the present, make him forget all else in seeing what is-and in the prospect of what will be his other self, he at once becomes a philanthropist, draws the moral between the species, is sarcastic on the white lords, while he elevates, by comparison, the black and brown slaves of the creation. Twice he says of it to Chiron and Demetrius, he is your brother,' and, in his language and sentiments, reminds the reader of Shylock comparing Jews to Christians, of Prospero's comparison between the spirit and himself. On this comparison Aaron founds the conduct they should pursue, and pleads for a common humanity.

He leaves the Empress to fly to the Goths, and leads, as he describes, a miserable life with them for the sake of his son, whom, he says, has driven him to these shifts, but whom he hopes to see a commander of a camp. Thus he does not quit the character of a hater of Rome and of humanity. But what Christian slave-proprietor of the present day would feel and act towards his mixed progeny on his estate, as Aaron does towards his offspring? The reader will also find, in the Merchant of Venice, that Shakspere makes Shylock taunt the Christians as sellers of their own flesh in slaves.

Titus, Marcus, young Lucius, and others, assemble to shoot, and Titus bears arrows with letters on them. Publius speaks

Pluto sends you word,

If you will have revenge from hell, you shall:

Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,

He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,

So that perforce you must needs stay a time.

Titus. He doth me wrong, to feed me with delays;
I'll dive into the burning lake below,

And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.

Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we:

No big-bon❜d men, framed of the Cyclops' size

But metal, Marcus; steel to the very back:

Yet wrung with wrongs, more than our backs can bear:
And sith there is no justice in earth nor hell,

We will solicit heaven; and move the gods,

To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs:
Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.
Ad Jovem, that's for you :-Here, ad Apollinem :—
Ad Martem, that's for myself;—

Here, boy, to Pallas;-Here, to Mercury:

To Saturn, Caius, not to Saturnine,—

You were as good to shoot against the wind.-
To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid:
O'my word, I have written to effect;
There's not a god left unsolicited.

The spirit of these ideas is reproduced throughout the author's plays. Titus says they are but men, and not 'Cyclops; the commentators quote Macrobius: impia gens deos negans-an impious people denying the gods. If not in physical, in moral powers of opposition-in the fight of blasphemy - the family and friends of Andronicus had arrived at an equality with the giants.

Having mocked divinity in general, Shakspere even descends to some particulars of modern religion, which he scoffs at. The gay must succeed the grave, and the everlasting clown must come in to joke at the expense of religion by his ignorant 'mistakes' and 'misplaces.' He enters with a basket and two pigeons.

Titus. News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come. Sirrah, what tidings? have you any letters?

Shall I have justice? what says Jupiter?

Clown. Ho! the gibbet-maker? he says, that he hath taken them down again, for the inan must not be hanged till the next week. Tit. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee.

Clo. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all my life.

Tit. Why, villain, art thou not the carrier?

Clo. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.

Tit. Why, did'st thou not come from heaven?

Clo. From heaven? alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid, I should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I am going with my pigeons to the tribunal plebs, to take up a matter of brawl, betwixt my uncle and of the Imperial's men.

Mar. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be, to serve for your oration and let him deliver the pigeons to the emperor from you.

Tit. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the emperor with a grace?

Clo. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.

Tit. Sirrah, come hither; make no more ado,

But give your pigeons to the emperor:

By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.

Hold, hold; meanwhile, here's money for thy charges.

Give me a pen and ink.

Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver a supplication?

Clo. Ay, sir.

Tit. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come to him, at the first approach, you must kneel; then kiss his foot; then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward. I'll be at hand: see that you do it bravely.

Clo. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.

Tit. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;

Come, let me see it.

For thou hast made it like an humble suppliant:
And when thou hast given it to the emperor,
Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.

Clo. God be with you, sir; I will.

In the apprehension of the Clown, Providence has only to do with capital punishments. It is to be inferred, by his ridicule and his example, that there were many simple men among the lower orders in Shakspere's time as in ours, who never troubled their heads at all about religion. Shakspere was the poet of nature, and would be more literally so in his youth. We might suppose, with a change of names, we were reading the questions and answers of the commissioners sent into the factories and mines to inquire into the amount of the religious knowledge of the people. Instead of mock prayers, the above is an impious matter-of-fact appeal to heaven, and a satire on Providence. There are some persons who require this clown's test of divinity. If force of repetition can make Shakspere to be Shakspere, the joke upon grace is his. Could Aristophanes in any scene have more girded the gods? From such writings the Greek poet was considered by his critics-J. Leclere and Ant. Muret-to have been an atheist. We have such a scene in Cymbeline delivered with more ridicule; but, in the above, there is invective and abuse. What such language and such con

duct was towards the gods, may be gathered in the judgment passed upon it by the Emperor. What tells against himself, may be considered as telling equally against the gods, against whom Titus directed his missives. Saturninus says

Why, lords, what wrongs are these? Was ever seen
An emperor of Rome thus overborne,

Troubled, confronted thus: and, for the extent
Of legal justice, us'd in such contempt?
My lords, you know, as do the mightful gods
However these disturbers of our peace

Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd
But even with law, against the wilful sons
Of old Andronicus. And what an if
His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,
Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,
His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?
And now he writes to heaven for his redress:
See, here's to Jove, and this to Mercury;
This to Apollo; this to the god of war:
Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!
What's this, but libelling against the senate,
And blazoning our injustice everywhere?
A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?
As who would say, in Rome no justice were.
But, if I live, his feign'd ecstacies
Shall be no shelter to these outrages:
But he and his shall know, that justice lives
In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,
He'll so awake, as she in fury shall

Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.

Jupiter, in Cymbeline, rebuking the accusing spirits, will remind the reader of the situation of Saturninus, and this speech put into his mouth.

Saturninus calls things by their right names. The speeches and libelling of the Andronici were more religious than political-and 'libelling' might have been written blasphemous.'

The Clown salutes the Emperor in the name of God and St. Stephen was it in ridicule of that martyr and the fate which awaited the poor clown, who fancied Jupiter, the gibbet-maker, had postponed hanging for a week, when, for no offence, the gallows were waiting for him?