COMPARATIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIBLE IN' DANTE AND SHAKESPEARE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—In the Spectator of October 9th your reviewer quotes with approval the following passage from the Rev. J. Carter's- " Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant ": —" Shakespeare draws all his religion from the Bible, Dante from the litera- ture of Roman Catholicism, such as books of devotion, the Fathers, and traditionary sources." This seems to suggest that Dante does not show any great knowledge of Scripture. Dr. Moore in his " Studies of Dante " does not hesitate to say that very few writers, media3val or modern, "know their Bible" as well as Dante did. Dr. Moore gives over five hundred quotations from and allusions to passages in Scripture, and these from almost every book in the Bible and Apocrypha, and adds that his intimate knowledge is shown, not only by direct citation, but by the frequent inter- weaving of Scriptural allusion and phraseology into the fabric of his diction. No doubt his knowledge of scholastic theology was immense, but it is a mistake to suppose that it was greater than his knowledge of the Vulgate.—I am,.
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