Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 22, August 1859 | Page 2

will you say of Balak, Nabal, Jeroboam? "Macbeth is rather guilty of tempting the Weird Sisters than of being tempted by them, and is surprised and horrified at his own hell-begotten conception." Saul is guilty of tampering with the Witch of Endor, and is alarmed at the Ghost of Samuel, whose words distinctly embody and vibrate the fears of his own heart, and he "falls straightway all along on the earth." "The exquisite refinement of Viola triumphs over her masculine attire." The exquisite refinement of Ruth triumphs in the midst of men.
We see there are points in which dramatic representation and Scriptural delineation mutually touch.
A distinguished divine of Connecticut said he wanted but two books in his library, the Bible and Shakspeare,--the one for religion, the other to be his instructor in human nature. In the same spirit, St. Chrysostom kept a copy of Aristophanes under his pillow, that he might read it at night before he slept and in the morning when he waked. The strong and sprightly eloquence of this father, if we may trust tradition, drew its support from the vigorous and masculine Atticism of the old comedian.
But human nature, in every stage of its development and every variety of its operation, is as distinctly pronounced on the pages of Scripture as in the scenes of the dramatist. Of Shakespeare it is said, "He turned the globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men, and the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns, passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives." He has been called the "thousand-minded," the "oceanic soul." The Bible creates the world and peoples it, and gives us a profound and universal insight into all its concerns.
Another peculiarity of Shakspeare is his self-forgetfulness. In reading what is written, you do not think of him, but of his productions. "The perfect absence of himself from his own pages makes it difficult for us to conceive of a human being having written them." This remark applies with obvious force to the Bible. The authors of the several books do not thrust themselves upon your notice, or interfere with your meditations on what they have written; indeed, to such an extent is this self-abeyance maintained, that it is impossible, at this period of time, to determine who are the authors of some of the books. The narrative of events proceeds, for the most part, as if the author had never existed. How _na?vely_ and perspicuously everything is told, without the colouring of prejudice, or an infusion of egotism on the part of the writer!
Coleridge says, Shakspeare gives us no moral highwaymen, no sentimental thieves and rat-catchers, no interesting villains, no amiable adulteresses. The Bible even goes farther than this, and is faithful to the foibles and imperfections of its favorite characters, and describes a rebellious Moses, a perjured David, a treacherous Peter.
"In nothing does Shakspeare so deeply and divinely touch the heart of humanity as in the representation of woman." We have the grandeur of Portia, the sprightliness of Rosalind, the passion of Juliet, the delicacy of Ophelia, the mournful dignity of Hermione, the filial affection of Cordelia. How shall we describe the Pythian greatness of Miriam, the cheerful hospitality of Sarah, the heroism of Rahab, the industry of Dorcas, the devotion of Mary? And we might set off Lady Macbeth with Jezebel, and Cleopatra with Delilah.
But the Bible, it may be said, so far as the subject before us is concerned, is chiefly historical, while Shakspeare is purely dramatic. The one is description,--the other action; the one relates to events,--the other to feelings; the department of the one is the general course of human affairs,--that of the other, the narrower circle of individual experience; the field of the one is that which the eye of philosophy may embrace,--while that of the other is what the human frame may portray.
However this may apply to the average of history, it will be found that the Bible, in its historical parts, is not so strictly historical as to preclude associations of another sort. The Bible is remarkable for a visual and embodied relief, a bold and vivid detail. We know of no book, if we may except the compositions of professed dramatists, that contains so much of personal feeling and incident. In simplicity and directness, in freedom from exaggeration, and in the general unreserve of its expression, it even exceeds the most of these. In it we may discover a succession of little dramas of Nature that will affect us quite as profoundly as those larger ones of Art.
If the structure of the drama be dialogistic, we find the Bible formed on the same model. If the writers of the former disappear under the personages of their fancy, the writers of the latter disappear under the