Excerpt from The Religion of Shakespeare: Chiefly From the Writings of the Late Mr. Richard Simpson, M.A The present work is based on a folio ms. Of Mr. Simpson's of some 200 pages, which was composed under the following circumstances. In 1858 Mr. Simpson published three articles in the Rambler, in which he defended the probability of Shakespeare being a Catholic. In 1864 there appeared a work on the subject from the pen of M. Rio, the author of l'art Chretien. Taken with Simpson's argument, Rio allowed his imagination free rein, and described the poet as an ardent and avowed champion of the Catholic faith, a conclusion far beyond that of Simpson's. The two writers, notwithstanding the totally different character of their works, were however made the object of a common attack in an article in the Edinburgh Review), January 1866, which was publicly attributed to Lord Mahon. It was primarily as a reply to this article that the folio above mentioned was written, but it developed into a comprehensive treatise on the subject of Shakespeare's philosophy and religion as manifested in his writings. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.