80 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



" What custom wills — in all things should we do't, 

 The dust on antique time would lie unswept, 

 And mountainous error be too highly heap'd 

 For truth to over-peer." 



By the rules of this society we are very properly prohibited 

 from making any particular allusions to the matter contained in 

 that only Book, which is divinely disconnected with the noblest 

 of profane works. It may, however, be permitted me to state 

 that though Shakspeare may not be regarded as a means whereby 

 we may obtain any thing conducive to the establishment of a 

 proper faith, he may be surely revered as a crude chaos, which, 

 to him who seeks it with a wish to find it, will yield the most 

 fascinating, the most impressive duplicate of every moral gem 

 afforded by the more holy treasure. And be it considered how 

 perfectly our Shakspeare has evinced his knowledge of that Book 

 upon the which he has, in his own, supplied many a matchless 

 commentary. Let no trumpery attack be made upon his religion 

 because it was the religion of a Playwright and a Player. He 

 was influenced by the morality of Christianity and he died in the 

 faith of it. 



The exquisite allusions to the vanities of the world are so fre- 

 quently introduced, so feelingly and so philosophically commented 

 on, as to leave us in no doubt, but that our author estimated them 

 as became a great and good man. 



He held the world but as the world. A Stage 



Where every man must play a part, 



He reason'd too with life as of a thini; 



Which none but fools would keep ; and mock'd the man 



Of wealth, as one who labour'd like an ass ; 



Bearing his heavy riches but a journey 



Till death unloads him ! " 



Who remembers not the beautiful meditations on this subject 

 put into the mouths of Jacques, Hamlet, Richard the Second, 

 Macbeth, and scattered throughout Measure for Measure ? One 

 moral sentiment in Macbeth has been deemed sufficient in itself 

 to warrant the erection of our Poet's statue in pure gold : — 



" I dare do all that may become a man ; — 

 Who dares do more is none ! " 



One specimen more from Shakspeare's moral smelting house : 

 and let it prove consolatory to the desponding : — 



Why think your suflferings shames, which are indeed nought else, 

 But the protractive trials of great Jove, 

 To find persistivc constancy in men? 

 The fineness of which metal is not found 



