As the picturesque, the statuesque, the poetical in the Bible are
legitimate studies, so also the dramatic.

But in the premises, is not the term _dramatic_ interdicted,--since it
is that which is not the Bible, but which is foreign to the Bible, and
even directly contradistinguished therefrom? The drama is
representation,--the Bible is fact; the drama is imitation,--the Bible
narrative; the one is an embodiment,--the other a substance; the one
transcribes the actual by the personal,--the other is a return to the
simplest originality; the one exalts its subjects by poetic
freedom,--the other adheres to prosaic plainness.

Yet are there not points in which they meet, or in which, for the
purposes of this essay, they may be considered as coming together,--that
is, admitting of an artistical juxtaposition?

In the first place, to take Shakspeare for a type of the drama, what, we
ask, is the distinguishing merit of this great writer? It is his
fidelity to Nature. Is not the Bible also equally true to Nature? "It is
the praise of Shakspeare," says Dr. Johnson, "that his plays are the
mirror of life." Was there ever a more consummate mirror of life than
the Bible affords? "Shakspeare copied the manners of the world then
passing before him, and has more allusions than other poets to the
traditions and superstitions of the vulgar." The Bible, perhaps, excels
all other books in this sort of description. "Shakspeare was an exact
surveyor of the inanimate world." The Bible is full of similar sketches.
An excellence of Shakspeare is the individuality of his characters.
"They are real beings of flesh and blood," the critics tell us; "they
speak like men, not like authors." How truly this applies to the persons
mentioned in sacred writ! Goethe has compared the characters of