going to execution, giving a tragic climax. The original Italian story provides for the opposite effect. Modern Shylocks, with trembling dignity, put up a hand to ward Gratiano off, then totter from the court. Many critics assert that with this exit interest in the story

ceases.

The most recent production in the United States added to Shylock's last few moments as many theatric devices as the mind of one producer could conceive. He clung to Gratiano for support. Flung from him he clutched another man, by whom he drew himself up. As he raised his head he saw it was Antonio. With a guttural sob he flung from him. But a pale-faced monk raised before him a crucifix, pointing at it menacingly. Shylock cringed, then paced past it, and out of sight. So far all this was quite effective, but the impression of his exit was nullified by a taunting cry outside from the gathered mob who had heard of his predicament.

Booth directed that Shylock should raise both head and hands as if about to appeal to Portia, check himself, and say very slowly, as head and hands drop, "I am content." His last words are uttered plaintively. As Shylock is leaving Gratiano seizes his left arm, and at the conclusion of the taunting speech with which he addresses him, casts Shylock's hand from him. Shylock bows low to the Duke, and slowly totters towards the door; he meets Antonio, and shrinks with abhorrence; raises his hand (as on previous occasions), which slowly descends upon the back of his head as it droops upon his breastfalls against the door, which slowly opens. The curtain should be "timed" to Shylock's exit.

"Booth, and many others, ended the play with the exit of Shylock."

This last statement has been repeated so frequently that it is almost a truism of stage history. It may have been true of some of Booth's productions, but not all. He devised a different manner of concluding the play, a manner so unexpected that I shall reproduce it here. Recently there came into my possession a slender volume: The Merchant of Venice as Produced at the Winter Garden Theater of New York, January, 1867, by Edwin Booth. A New Adaptation to the Stage. A book dealer has written this note upon a flyleaf: "Nearly the whole of this edition was destroyed by fire at the burning of the Winter Garden Theatre shortly after the publication."

In this version the play does not end with the exit of Shylock, but after the following peculiar telescoping of all the remainder of the material:

GRAT. In christ'ning thou shalt have two godfathers;

Had I been judge thou should'st have had ten more,
To bring thee to the gallows, not the font.

DUKE. Sir, I entreat you with me home to dinner.
POR. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon:
I must away this night toward Padua,
And it is meet I presently set forth.

DUKE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.
Antonio, gratify this gentleman,

BASS.

POR.

ANT.

BASS.
GRAT.

POR.

For in my mind, you are much bound to him.

[Exit SHYLOCK.

[Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and TRAIN. PORTIA
and NERISSA retire up the stage and throw off
their disguises.

[Going up the stage with ANTONIO and friends.]
Most worthy gentleman-

You are all amazed:

Here is a letter, read it at your leisure;

It comes from Padua, from Bellario:

There you shall find that Portia was the Doctor;
Nerissa, there, her clerk. Antonio,

I have better news in store for you,

Than you expect: unseal this letter soon;
There you shall find, three of your argosies

Are richly come to harbor suddenly.

You shall not know by what strange accident
I chanced on this letter.

I am dumb.

Were you the Doctor, and I knew you not?
Were you the clerk-

You are not satisfied
Of these events at full. Let us go in;
And charge us there upon interrogatories,
And we will answer all things faithfully.

[Exeunt.

Knowing such facts about earlier productions, we can be doubly grateful for the care of producers in attempting to interpret this play both more naturally and effectively.

T

THE PLACE OF THE BOOK OF LUKE IN

LITERATURE

W. O. SYPHERD

Professor of English, University of Delaware

O those of us who have been accustomed to think that Biblical writing, or Biblical style if you will, attains, in its kind, close to perfection, a recent dissenting note from Mr. J. Middleton Murry fairly constitutes a challenge to defend. It certainly forces us with right good will to question the almost unanimous testimony of judges of good writing, of literature, that the Bible is one of the world's literary masterpieces. For, Mr. Murry says that "a great part of the historical books of the Old Testament, the gospels in the New, are examples of all that writing should not be"; and, further, "that the following proposition must be accepted in any consideration of style: The Life of Jesus, by Ernest Renan, is, as a whole, infinitely superior in point of style to the narrative of the Authorized Version of the Gospels.'

The conventional estimate of the literary merits of the Bible, I suppose, hardly needs any illustration. I am tempted, however, for purposes of contrast, to quote several expressions of opinion. "Priests, atheists, sceptics, devotees, agnostics, and evangelists are generally agreed," says Professor Phelps, "that the Authorized Version of the English Bible is the best example of English Literature that the world has ever seen. . . . The art of English composition reached its climax in the pages of the Bible." 2 Walter Pater3 refers thus to the greatness of the literary art of the Bible: "It is in the quality of the matter it informs or controls, its compass, its variety, its alliance to great ends, or its depth of the note of revolt, or the largeness of hope in it, that the greatness of literary art depends, as the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Les Miserables, The English

Bible, are great art." "The English Bible," says Frederic Harrison,1 "is the true school of English Literature. It possesses every quality of our language in its highest form-except for scientific precision, practical affairs, and philosophic analysis. It would be ridiculous to write an essay on metaphysics, a political article, or a novel in the language of the Bible. But if you care to know the best that our Literature can give in simple, noble prose-mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures in the English tongue." And quite recently, the Honorable Stephen Coleridge compares the Authorized Version of the Bible with the Bible in Modern Speech to illustrate the immense difference between "what is noble and fine in style and what is poor and third rate."

Alongside these critical estimates, place Mr. Murry's statement about the style of certain books of the Bible, and we have a point of departure for an impartial study of the qualities of Bible writing. For the purpose of such a study let us take what is generally admitted to be the most literary of the Gospels, the Book of Luke. What are the literary qualities of this story of the life of Jesus? Are we justified in saying that this gospel is good writing? Or, to ask a bold specific question, "Is the King James Version of the Book of Luke a Masterpiece of English Literature?"

3

Much as we should look with suspicion upon superlatives in literary criticism, and particularly with respect to the Bible, about which there has been so much loose writing and careless talk, we cannot do better in a literary study of the Book of Luke than to start with Renan's now famous statement that "C'est le plus beau livre qu'il y ait" --the most beautiful or, shall we say, the finest book that has ever been written. What did Renan mean by these words? He used the phrase le plus beau intentionally; there is no doubt about that. He spoke of the Gospel of St. Matthew as the most important book that has ever been written, "le livre le plus important qui ait jamais été écrit"; and followed this statement by the equally significant remark about Luke. Let us have before us the significant parts of Renan's comment:

"L'Évangile de Luc est le plus littéraire des Évangiles. Tout y révèle un esprit large et doux, sage, modéré, sobre et raisonnable dans l'irrationel. Ses exagérations, ses invraisemblances, ses inconséquences tiennent à la nature 1"On English Prose," The Nineteenth Century, vol. 43, p. 492.

The Glory of English Prose, p. 9.

2

3

Les Evangiles, Calmann-Lévy, Editeurs, Paris, pp. 282-83.

même de la parabole et en font le charme. Matthieu arrondit les contours un peu secs de Marc; Luc fait bien plus; il écrit, il montre une vraie entente de la composition. Son livre est un beau récit bien suivit à la fois hébraique et hellénique (prologue) joignant l'émotion du drame à la sérénité de l'idylle. Tout y rit, tout y pleure, tout y chante; partout des larmes et des cantiques; c'est l'hymne du peuple nouveau, l'hosanna des petits et des humbles introduits dans le royaume de Dieu. Un esprit de sainte enfance, de joie, de ferveur, le sentiment évangélique dans son originalité première répandent sur toute la légende une teinte d'une incomparable douceur. On ne fut jamais moins sectaire. Pas un reproche, pas un mot dur pour le vieux peuple exclu; son exclusion ne le punit-elle pas assez? C'est le plus beau livre qu'il y ait. Le plaisir que l'auteur dut avoir à l'écrire ne sera jamais suffisamment compris."

Renan seems to be viewing here comprehensively the elements which make for literary effectiveness-the theme, the spirit of the work, the skill of the artist; the matter and the style; the thought or the idea and the expression.

But as we consider Renan's appreciative comment in our attempt to determine the literary qualities of Luke's Gospel, let us not lose sight of two important considerations: First, Renan based his statement on the beauty or significance of the Book as it was presented to him in the language of the original. Now admittedly the King James Version of this book has a marked literary flavor of its own; different surely from that of the Greek original, and-what is a very rare occurrence in a translation-possibly superior to it. With this noble English version before us we might very easily attach more importance than did Renan to the medium of expression considered, if it is possible, as a thing apart from the subject matter. Or, to express it in another way, Renan may have found the distinctive beauty of the book in its theme, its material, and its spirit, rather than in the medium of expression.1 And, second, Renan, regarding, as he did, the great central figure of the Gospel solely as a human personality, certainly did not have the emotional predispositions which most

'From a different point of view but with what might seem to be an identical conclusion, Mr. W. F. Adeney (The New Century Bible, Luke, Introduction, p. 3) comments on the significance of this book: "Appreciative readers of the New Testament have no desire to bring that volume, or any part of it, into competition with the Symposium or Phado, with King Lear or Hamlet. Its claims on our regard are to be found in other regions than those assigned to the philosopher and the poet. But if the beauty of a book lies deeper than grace of diction, strength of thought, wealth of imaginationif we take into account the spirit of a work as well as its form, its subject as well as its style, the moral and spiritual phases of the beautiful as well as the sensuous and the intellectual, the claim for this gospel to be the most beautiful of all books (Renan) may well be regarded as unapproachable.”