although for many years preachers took their texts and read their lessons from the Genevan Bible until the practice was suppressed by authority. The Genevan Bible, by reason of its size and price, was a home and school Version, admirably adapted in every way to become a household Bible. Puritan' teachers in the houses of the great families and schoolmasters used the Genevan for the purpose of instructing and catechising the young. We know that Bacon, Milton, and many other great men of the Elizabethan period, were trained in the Version, and used it to the end of life. No writer has assimilated the thoughts and reproduced the words of Holy Scripture more copiously than Shakespeare. As Dr. Furnivall puts it, "he is saturated with the Bible story".

Mr. Sidney Lee does not consider Shakespeare's Bible knowledge to be anything beyond that which a clever boy would be certain to acquire in the schoolroom or at church on Sundays, but Mr. Lee underestimates the extent to which Shakespeare is indebted to the Bible for thought and word. Shakespeare was a heaven-born genius, but genius can do nothing without a means of expression, and the artist in words must first find his vocabulary. He does not invent it. As a scholar, in the conventional sense, Shakespeare's opportunities ceased at an early age, and the literature he had then mastered was not very extensive. When in London and in the work of revision of plays he had neither time nor opportunity for scholarly pursuits. The genius he possessed was beginning to manifest its activity, but it had to express itself in that vehicle of thought which it found ready to hand. Whatever else the poet had or lacked, he must have brought to his work a mind richly stored with the thoughts and words of the English Bible. A man does not learn the Bible by intuition, and there must have been a period in the poet's history when that knowledge was acquired. If in manhood, then the presumption would be in favour of Shakespeare's personal piety; if in youth, it would be a strong testimony in favour of the religious influences of his home and the training given by his parents and schoolmasters. We know that from the age of eight to that of thirteen William Shakespeare was under the tuition at Stratford of Thomas Hunt, a Puritan well qualified to train his scholars in Biblical knowledge, who was afterwards deprived of his living of Luddington for contumacy.

Again, the power of apt and literal quotation is seldom acquired after the earlier days of manhood have been passed, and no man can quote instinctively and correctly unless he has been well grounded in his childhood. The spontaneous flow of Scriptural ideas and phrases which are to be found everywhere in the plays reveals the fact most clearly that the mind of Shakespeare must indeed have been " saturated" with the Word of God. He most readily expresses his mind in Biblical phrase or illustration. Not that he always quotes with a religious object in view; on the contrary, he is often unmindful of the meaning or association of the words, and becomes so daring and indiscriminate in his use that he shocks the sensitive mind. He may be said to use Scripture on any and every occasion, to dignify the thought of a king, to point the jest of a wit, or to brighten the dulness of a clown. But while this power of quotation bears witness to a thorough acquaintance with the words of Scripture, and to the fact that all his conceptions of revealed religion are cast in the Puritan mould, it would be pressing the point unduly if we were to consider the words put into the mouths of his characters to be evidence of the writer's own personal belief. It is going beyond the province of legitimate criticism to frame a creed for an author by piecing together the words of the characters he has called into being. But it is of importance to notice how much Shakespeare is indebted to the English Bible for his vocabulary. I have studied every line in the plays in order to trace out how far this indebtedness extends, and after a careful comparison have come to the conclusion that the Genevan Bible was the version used by Shakespeare. The deductions which naturally arise if this conclusion be correct I am not here concerned with, but it is of interest to note what Mr. Halliwell Phillips and Mr. Sidney Lee have written on this point. The former says in the Preface of a small book on the subject: "The contents of the following pages will, it is thought, tend to the impression that the Version of the Bible usually read by Shakespeare was that known as the Genevan"; and the latter: "Of the few English books accessible to him in his schooldays, the chief was the English Bible, either in the popular Genevan Version first issued in a complete form in 1560, or in the Bishops' revision of 1568".

Having said so much by way of introduction let me justify

my words by illustrations from the plays. In Romeo and Juliet, IV. i. 81, we have :

"O'er covered quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow, chapless sculls" ;

in Richard III., IV. iv. 27:

"Some lay in dead men's skulles";

while in Richard II., IV. i. 142, we have the phrase again
"The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls".
The word Golgotha at once reveals the inspiration of the phrase,
and turning to the Versions we find that Wiclif, Rheims and
Authorised give "Golgotha, which is the place of Calvarie,”
Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull," while in Tyndale,
Cranmer and Genevan we have "Golgotha, the place of dead
men's skulls". In Richard II., III. iv. 85, the Gardener says:—
"Their fortunes both are weighed,

In your Lord's scale is nothing but himself
And some few vanities that make him light
But in the balance of Great Bolingbroke".

The reference here is clearly to the handwriting on the wall
which presaged the passing of the kingly power from the hands
of Belshazzar. The Authorised, Daniel v. 27, gives, "Thou art
weighed in the balances and art found wanting," while the
Genevan has "Thou art weyed in the balance and art found too
light". In the first Act of the same play Richard says:-
"Give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame;"

to which Norfolk replies in Biblical words:

"Yea, but not change his spots".

The text quoted from is in Jeremiah xiii. 23, and is thus rendered by the Genevan, "Can the blacke Moore change his skin? or the leopard his spots?" The Genevan was the first Version to give "leopard"; previous Versions gave "cat o' mountain".

In King John, IV. ii. 30, there is a use of our Lord's words to His disciples in the passage which is as follows:

"Oftentimes excusing of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,
As patches set upon a little breach

Discredit more in hiding of the fault

Than did the fault before it was so patched ".

The Authorised, Mark ii. 21, has "The rent is made worse". Tyn., Cran.-"So is the rent worse".

Wiclif-" More breking is made".

Rheims-" A greater rent".

Genevan-" Also no man soweth a piece of new cloth in an old garment for else the new piece that filled it up taketh away somewhat from the olde, and the breach is worse".

In the Taming of the Shrew, IV. i. 50, there is the passage :— "Where's the cook? is supper ready, the house trimmed,

rushes strewed, cobwebs swept: the serving-men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every officer his wedding garment on?"

In reading the words we are reminded of the Parable of the Wedding Supper, as recorded in the twenty-second chapter of Matthew, and the phrase, "his wedding garment on," is worth a moment's study.

Wiclif has "Without bride clothis".

Cran. and Auth." Not having a wedding garment".
Rheims-" Not attired in a wedding garment".

The Genevan is the only Version which gives "on".

Matthew xxii. 11, 12—“ A man which had not on a wedding garment.

'Friend, how camest thou in hither and hast not on a wedding garment?'"

Again, while we are on the subject of the Parables and the importance of single words, a passage in Henry V., IV. iii. 70, is interesting :

King Henry. “All things are ready, if our minds be so." The words are taken from the Parable of the Great Supper, but it requires the Genevan Version to illustrate the connection.

Wiclif has, concerning the unwilling guests-" All begunnen togidre to excusen".

Cran, and Tyn.-" All at once beganne".

Rheims-"Began all at once".

Author." With one consent began ".

Genevan, Luke xiv. 17-18-"Come, for all things are nowe ready. But they all with one minde began to make excuse."

In As You Like It there is an interesting instance of the omission of the definite article in the words of the Duke in V. i. 118:

"Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death”.

This omission is to be found in the Puritan Versions, Tyn., Cran, and Genevan, but the others give "at the point of death". Wiclif has "nigh dead," Rheims and Auth., "at the point of death". Tyndale, Cran. and Genevan, Mark v. 23, "And besought him instantly, saying, My litle daughter lieth at point of death". The omission may be shown to be not uncommon in the literature of the period, but it is interesting that in his use of a phrase Shakespeare follows the Genevan Version. In another somewhat amusing instance in As You Like It a knowledge of the Genevan Version is required in order to appreciate the force of a cynicism. Jaques says in V. iv. 35 —

"There is sure another Flood toward, and these couples are coming to the Ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts."

The point is not very clearly brought out by the reading of the Authorised, because it gives the word "two," but the Genevan illustrates it perfectly :

Genesis vii. 2-" Of every cleane beast thou shalt take to

thee by sevens, the male and his female; but of the uncleane beasts by couples, the male and his female".

Another interesting use of a Biblical phrase is to be found in the play of Othello, where in V. ii. 47 the Moor exclaims :

"Peace and be still".

If the "and" were omitted the words would at once remind us of the Stilling of the Tempest, where, according to Wiclif, Cranmer, Rheims and Authorised, our Lord said to wind and sea, "Peace be still". It is difficult to believe that the miracle on the Sea of Galilee did not give Shakespeare the phrase, and the idea is strengthened when we find in Tyndale and Genevan the very words, Mark iv. 39: "And he rose up and rebuked the winde, and sayd unto the sea, Peace and be still".

Again, in the same play, Cassio in II. iii. 129 says :—

"It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath".