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 be inferred by judicious critics from particular phrases or from the relations of Puritans to players in general. But without such reasoning we may go further and say that the very conception of a Puritan Shakespeare involves a contradiction in terms. He represents, of course, in the fullest degree, the type which is just the antithesis of Puritanism; the large and tolerant acceptance of human nature which was intolerable to the rigid and strait-laced fanatics, whom, nevertheless, we may forgive in consideration of their stern morality. People, indeed, have argued, very fruitlessly I fancy, as to Shakespeare's religious beliefs. Critics tell us, and I have no doubt truly, that it would be impossible to show conclusively from his works whether he considered himself to be an Anglican or a Catholic. But a man's religion is not to be defined by the formula which he accepts, or inferred even from the church to which he belongs. That is chiefly a matter of accident and circumstance, not of character. The same essential religious sentiments may be clothed in the most various and even logically contradictory creeds. We may, I think, be pretty certain that Shakespeare's religion, whatever may have been its external form, included a profound sense