But no amount of knowledge of the
_words_ of the Bible would be sufficient to justify the use of the word
_profound_. What is remarkable in the employment of these passages, is
not merely that they are so present to his mind that they come up for
use in the most exciting moments of composition, but that he embodies
the spirit of them in such a new form as reveals to minds saturated and
deadened with the _sound_ of the words, the very visual image and
spiritual meaning involved in them. "_The primrose way!_" And to what?
We will confine ourselves to one passage more:--
"Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments."
In the end of the 14th chapter of the Revelation we have the words,
"Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap;
for the harvest of the earth is ripe." We suspect that Shakspere wrote,
ripe _to_ shaking.
The instances to which we have confined ourselves do not by any means
belong to the most evident kind of proof that might be adduced of
Shakspere's acquaintance with Scripture. The subject, in its ordinary
aspect, has been elsewhere treated with far more fulness than our design
would permit us to indulge in, even if it had not been done already.
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