The British quarterly review - 1851 Author:Robert Vaughan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THOUGHTS ON THE LABOUB QUESTION. 67 beside their cradles; they had looked bodily upon the witch as she passed along, known by name, and hated of all. At the u... more »niversity,—for all these dramatists, however their after-life was spent, had graduated there,—although the form of the popular faith might change, still the substance was the same. In the mists of that early morning, all was indefinable; and all things, like 'the giant shadows of the Brocken, took strange shapes; what wonder, then, that men with so many marvels around them should fix no bounds to their belief? Still, the age by some superficial writers so much scorned, because it was the age of faith in the supernatural, was also the age of firm faith in the Scriptures; and thus, it is delightful to meet—in most unexpected juxta-position—with quotations and allusions, which the gentlemen wits of queen Anne's days would have termed most fanatical, and the sober church-going people of the Georgian era, rank methodism. No one, we are sure, can properly estimate the religious character of the age of Elizabeth, unless he diligently studies the old dramatists. The subject is of great interest, and although we have exceeded our limits, it is far from being exhausted, for we shall find in the dramatic poetry of this reign, and still more in that of the succeeding reign, traits of character and pictures of manners to be met with only there, combined with some of our finest poetry, and, more important still, a reflection of the moral and intellectual character of the period—which we can obtain from no other source. Art. III.—Christian Socialism, a Lecture. By J. M. Ludlow, Esq. London. Mr. Macaulay, in his ' History of England,1 has drawn some vivid comparisons between past and present ages, as regards the condition of t...« less