Spedding. Cp. Introd. to _Leopold_
Shakspere p. lxxxvii.

[172] Lear once (iii. 4) says he will pray; but his religion
goes no further.

[173] See the passage cited above in section iii in
connection with _Measure for Measure_.

[174] Act iv, Sc. 2.

[175] Act i, Sc. 2.

[176] B. i, Chap. 20.

[177] B. i, Chap. 30.

[178] Edit. Firmin-Didot, i, 202.

[179] _Ibid._, pp. 477-478.

[180] _Here_, it may be said, there is a trace of the
influence of Bruno's philosophy; and it may well be that
Shakspere did not spontaneously strike out the thought for
himself. But I am not aware that any parallel passage has
been cited.

[181] Fleay's _Life_, pp. 138, &c.

[182] B. i, Chap. 42.

[183] B. ii, Chap. 12. (Edit. cited, i. 501.)

[184] _Midsummer Nights Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 2.

[185] See his Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden

[186] Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines of the Life of
Shakspere_, 5th ed., p. 175.

[187] I find even Mr. Appleton Morgan creating a needless
difficulty on this head. In his _Shakspere in Fact and
Criticism_, already cited, he writes (p. 316): "I find him
... living and dying so utterly unsuspicious that he had
done anything of which his children might care to hear, that
he never even troubled himself to preserve the manuscript of
or the literary property in a single one of the plays which
had raised him to affluence." As I have already pointed out,
there is no reason to suppose that Shakspere could retain
the ownership of his plays any more than did the other
writers who supplied his theatre. They belonged to the
partnership. Besides, he could not possibly have published
as _his_ the existing mass, so largely made up of other
men's work. His fellow-players did so without scruple after
his death, being simply bent on making money.

[188] Sonnet 110. Compare the next.

[189] B. ii, Chap. 10.

[190] B. i, Chap. 38.

[191] This may be presumed to have been written between 1603
and 1609, the date of the publication of the Sonnets. As Mr.
Minto argues, "the only sonnet of really indisputable date
is the 107th, containing the reference to the death of
Elizabeth" (_Characteristics_, as cited, p. 220). As the
first 126 sonnets make a series, it is reasonable to take
those remaining as of later date.

[192] It more particularly echoes, however, two passages in
the nineteenth essay