and

HOLY WRIT

PARALLEL PASSAGES, TABULARLY ARRANGED

BY

W. H. MALCOLM

WITH FOREWORDS BY

F. J. FURNIVALL, M.A., CAMB.

FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF
THE NEW SHAKSER SOCIET

ΙΕ

JUL 1882

BODLEIANA

London:

MARCUS WARD & CO., 67, CHANDOS STREET

AND ROYAL ULSTER WORKS, BELFAST

1881

FOREWORDS.

T is but natural for an Englishman, whether he believes in the full inspiration of the Bible or not, to couple it and Shakspere's works together; for these books are the two which have most influenced the English mind. And in this Victorian time-this "age which reverences Shakspere more than any age before it," and when he has so penetrated into common speech that one can hardly ever read an article in a daily paper without finding in it allusions to Shakspere-no wonder will be felt that the publishers, so widely known by their Shakspere Calendar, should have had compiled a little book setting side by side the thoughts that in the Bible and Shakspere throw light on one another.

Shakspere's books fall into two classes-his trade or plot ones, and his leisure or pleasure ones. Quite possible that he took as his trade-books such of his leisure-books as pleased him most, and could be used for his business too; but when he turned them from one class into the other, we must follow him. His trade-books-plot or story books-then, include

Plautus (for the Comedy of Errors).

Ovid (for Venus and Adonis).

North's Plutarch (for Midsummer Night's Dream and the
Roman and Greek Plays).

Montemayor's Diana (for The Two Gentlemen of Verona).
B. Rich's Appollonius and Sylla (for Twelfth Night).
A. Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (for Romeo and Juliet).
Painter's Palace of Pleasure (for All's Well that Ends Well).

Prof. J. R. Gardiner, in The Academy, Oct. 9, 1880, p. 251, col. 2.

R. Holinshed's Chronicle, 2nd edition, 1587 (for the Historical Plays, Macbeth, Lear, and Cymbeline).

E. Halle's Chronicle (occasionally).

The Contention and True Tragedy (for 2 and 3 Henry VI.).* The Troublesome Raigne of King John, 1594 (for King John). Fiorentino's Pecorone (for the Merchant of Venice).

Robinson's Englisht Gesta Romanorum (for the Merchant of Venice).

The Taming of a Shrew, 1594 (for his The Shrew).

Bandello, in Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques (for Much Ado and Hamlet).

Lodge's Rosalynde (for As You Like It).
G. Whetstone (for Measure for Measure).
Cinthio's Hecatomithi (for Othello).

Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (for Lear).

Chaucer (for Troilus and Cressida and Two Noble Kinsmen). Chapman's Homer, or Caxton's Recuyell (for Troilus and Cressida).

L. Twine's Painfull Adventures (for Pericles).

Boccaccio (for Cymbeline).

Greene's Pandosto (for Winter's Tale).

Thus, Shakspere's chief trade-books were Italian storybooks, Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Romans and Greeks, Holinshed's Chronicles, and the five plays he re-wrote or adapted-Plautus's Menæchmi, The Contention and True Tragedy, The Troublesome Raigne, and A Shrew. English to the core as he is, he got his main plot materials from abroad. Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits."

Among the other bookst and men that influenced Shakspere's mind, and that he used in his plays, though not for his plots, were certainly

The Bible.

Lyly's Euphues.

Montaigne's Essays.

Greene, in Comedy,

Marlowe, in Tragedy,
Baptista Mantuanus.

He probably wrote only the Temple Garden scene in 1 Henry VI., and touched up Titus Andronicus.

For Ovid's influence on Shakspere, see Professor T. S. Baynes's able Papers in Frazer's Magazine, 1879, 1880, on "What Shakespeare learnt at school."

History of Garagantua.
Harsnet's Popish Impostures.
Harsnet's John Darel, 1599.
Wilson's Logique.

Rhetorique.

Caxton's Game of the Chesse (Mollis aer in Cymbeline)
C. Robinson's Handefull of Pleasant Delaertes, 1584.
An C Merry Tales.

Saviolo's Honorable Quarrels, 1594.

Florio's Second Frutes, 1591.

The Book of Nurture, or Schoole of Good Manners.

Sir J. Harrington's Ajax, 1596.

Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, 1578.

Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1595. True Tragedie of Richard III.

The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth.

Forde's Parismus, 1598.

Mandeville's Travels.

Holland's Pliny.

Contareno's Venice, 1599.

Camden's Remaines, 1605.

Jourdan's Discovery of the Bermudas, 1610.

Now of all these books and men, none is so often quoted or alluded to by Shakspere as the Bible. Not only does he mention "Holy Writ" four times,* "Scripture" three times,t "the Word" three times, "the Book of Life" once (Richard II. I. iii. 202)," the Book " nine times (see Schmidt, § 2), and "it is written" once (Errors, IV. iii. 55. See also Henry V., I. ii. 98; Romeo and Juliet, I. ii. 39); not only does he quote or use Bible passages in his plays-as

"Blessed are the peacemakers on earth."-2 Henry VI., II. i. (Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shalbe called the children of God.-St. Matthewe, v. 9, edition 1583.)

"For wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it." -1 Henry IV., I. ii. 99.

All's Well, II. i. 141; 2 Henry VI., I. iii. 61 (Holy saws of Sacred Writ); Richard III., I. iii. 337; Othello, III. iii. 324.—Schmidt.

↑ Merchant, I. iii. 99; Richard III., I. iii. 334; Hamlet, V. i. 41.-Schmidt. Merry Wives, III. i. 44; Richard II., V. v. 13; 2 Henry IV, IV. ii. ro; with Measure for Measure, I. ii. 126 (the words of heaven).-Schmidt.