Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/252

 "Glittering in golden coats, like images."

Sievers thinks that the main thread of all Shakspeare's poetry was the "reproduction out of the nature of man of the Protestant scheme of Christianity"! It is shown particularly in the "Merchant of Venice" and "Hamlet." Tschischwitz's book is as deterrent as his name. It is an attempt to develop Shakspeare's views upon the relation between ruler and people,—to show that he considered the state and kingdom to rest upon reciprocity of duties and upon the principle of piety. This is only another specimen of the terrific afterthoughts which the Germans force back upon Shakspeare. Gervinus calls him the perfect representative of modern Protestantism; Vischer concluded that he was a Pantheist; Bernays will not allow to him any religion at all; while Dr. Reichensperger, of the German Parliament, gives reasons in his book for believing that he was an Ultramontanist! And Thomas Tyler, of the University of London, considers that Hamlet was a forerunner of Schopenhauer, and thoroughly pessimistic, because the calamity in the play does not respect personal character, and the future retributions and compensations are not clearly made out! *