Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the _index_? [44]

There is no trace, in the first quarto, of the following most
characteristic thoughts:--

For, use almost can change the stamp of Nature [45]
And either curb (?) the Devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency....
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you.

Let us figure to ourselves before what public Hamlet first saw the
wanderer from Purgatory; before what youth he bade Ophelia go to
a nunnery; before what men he remained inactive at the critical
moment simply because the criminal is engaged in his prayers,
whilst his own murdered father died without Holy Communion, without
having confessed and received the Extreme Unction. Let us remember
before what audience he purposely made the thunders of the Index
roar so loud; at what place he gets into ecstasy; and where he first
preaches to his mother that the Devil may be mastered and thrown out.

Here, certainly, we have questions of religion!

Shakspere's genius has known how to transport these most important
questions of his time, away from the shrill contact with contemporary
disputes, into the harmonious domain of the Muses. He, and his friends
and patrons, did not look upon the subjects discussed in this tragedy
with the passionless, indifferent eyes of our century. Many men, no
doubt, were filled with the thought, to which Bacon soon gave a