But it is very difficult to conceive that the compliments to Elizabeth should have been written after her death.
Fletcher, born in 1579, did not, in Mr. Dyce's opinion, bring out anything singly or jointly with Beaumont till 1606 or 1607.
The irrelevant scenes, like that of Ventidius, are introduced with two objects—one to gain time, the other for the sake of naturalness: of the latter of which there are two instances in Macbeth; one where the King talks of the swallows' nests: the other, relating to the English king touching for the evil, seems remarkably suited to the mind of Shakspeare.
C. B.
"SUN, STAND THOU STILL UPON GIBEON!"
(JOSH. x. 12.)
(Vol. iii., p. 137.)
The observations of I. K. upon this passage have obviously proceeded from a praiseworthy wish to remove what has appeared to some minds to be inconsistent with that perfect truth which they expect to be the result of divine inspiration. I. K. doubtless believes that God put it into the heart of Joshua to utter a command for the miraculous continuance of daylight. But why should he expect the inspiration to extend so far as to instruct Joshua respecting the manner in which that continuance was to be brought about? Joshua was not to be the worker of the miracle. It was to be wrought by Him who can as easily stop any part of the stupendous machinery of His universe, as we can stop the wheels of a watch. Joshua was left to speak, as he naturally would, in terms well fitted to make those around him understand, and tell others, that the sun and moon, whom the defeated people notoriously worshipped, were so far from being able to protect their worshippers, that they were made to promote their destruction at the bidding of Joshua, whom God had commissioned to be the scourge of idolaters. And when the inspired recorder of the miracle wrote that "the sun stood still," he told what the eyes saw, with the same truth as I might say that the sun rose before seven this morning. Inspiration was not bestowed to make men wise in astronomy, but wise unto salvation.
Those who think that the inspired penman should have said "the earth stood still," in order to give a perfectly true account of the miracle, have need to be told, or would do well to remember, that the stopping of the diurnal revolution of the earth, in order to keep the sun and moon's apparent places the same, would not involve a cessation of its motion in its orbit, still less a cessation of that great movement of the whole solar system, by which it is now more than conjectured that the sun, the moon, and the earth are all carried on together at the rate of above 3700 miles in an hour; so that to say "the earth stood still" would be liable to the same objection, viz., that of not being astronomically true. I. K. carries his notion of the "inseparable connexion" of the sun "with all planetary motion" too far, when he supposes that a stoppage of the sun's motion round its own axis would have any effect on our planet. The note he quotes from Kitto's Pictorial Bible is anything but satisfactory; and that from Mant is childishly common-place. Good old Scott adverts with propriety to the Creator's power to keep all things in their places, when the earth's revolution was stopped; but when he endeavoured to illustrate it by the little effect of a ship's casting anchor when under full sail, he should have consulted his friend Newton, who would have stopped such an imagination. Another commentator, Holden, has argued, in spite of the Hebrew, that "in the midst of heaven" cannot mean mid-day, having made up his mind that the moon can never be seen at that hour!