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MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

ACT I.

Scene 1. Page 180.

Sufficiency is, no doubt, ability, and not authority, as Warburton conceives; and this shows that there is an omission in the speech of what the duke would have added concerning the authority which he meant to delegate. The most rational addition is that suggested by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should contend for the introduction of a line of thirteen syllables!

Scene 1. Page 186.

That is, "I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." These are words of great import, and ought to be made clear, as on them depends the chief incident of the play.

Scene 2. Page 191.

This speech should have been given to the first gentleman, in order to correspond with the note, which is probably right.

Scene 2. Page 191.

The quotations already given sufficiently exemplify the meaning; yet that which follows being remarkably illustrative, is offered in addition. "More seeming friendship [is] to be had in an house of transgression for a French crown, though it be a bald one, than at Belinsgate for a boxe o' th'eare." Vox graculi, or Jack Dawe's prognostication, 1623, 4to, p. 60.

Scene 2. Page 192.

A most appropriate question to the bawd. The author of the facetious Latin comedy of Cornelianum dolium has named one of Cornelius's strumpets Sciatica. She thus speaks of herself; "In lectulo meo ægrè me vertere potui; podagram, chiragram, et hip-agram (si ita dicere liceat) nocte quotidie sensi."

Scene 2. Page 195.

Why does she call the clown by this name, when it appears from his own showing that his name was Pompey? Perhaps she is only quoting some old saying or ballad.

Scene 3. Page 201.

One of the old significations of this word appears to have been easily moving, which is evidently the sense required in this place. See Cotgrave's Dictionary, in prone.

Scene 4. Page 203.

Mr. Reed's explanation of this word as used for dwells, is confirmed by another passage in this play, Act IV. Scene 1.

Scene 5. Page 208.

It has been conceived that there is here a transposition at the press for "that for which." The emendation is more grammatical than harmonious; but the expression is quite in Shakspeare's manner. A few pages further on we have this similar phraseology:

Scene 5. Page 211.

This term was applied to the female sex not only in Shakspeare's time, but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montagu in a letter to her husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the bans of marriage at Huntingdon, calls her lover. See her works, vol. i. p. 238.

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 216.

On the very plausible authority of a passage in As you like it, where the executioner is said to "fall his axe," the present metaphor has been supposed to refer also to the punishment of decapitation. If it be so, there is a manifest impropriety in the expression "cut a little," as we are not to imagine that Escalus would intend to chop off a criminal's hand, or to deprive him of his ears; both modes of punishment, which though frequently practised in the reign of Elizabeth, seem exclusively adapted to a community of barbarians. May not the metaphor be rather borrowed from the cutting down of timber, and Escalus mean to say, "Is it not better to lop off a few branches, than to fall the whole tree?"

Scene 1. Page 217.

We have here one of Shakspeare's trips; an English jury in a German court of justice.

Scene 1. Page 223.

We must not conclude with Mr Steevens that a China dish was such an uncommon thing in the age of Shakspeare. In the first act of Massinger's Renegado, this article is mentioned, together with crystal glasses and pictures, as composing the furniture of a broker's shop; and it appears from other authorities that China dishes were used at banquets. During the reign of Elizabeth several Spanish carracks were taken, a part of whose cargoes was China ware of porcelaine. The recent seizure by Philip II. of Portugal and its colonies led to this sort of commerce in the East Indies. In Minsheu's Spanish dialogues, 1623, folio, p. 12, China mettall is explained to be "the fine dishes of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice." It is very probable that we had this commodity by means of our traffic with Italy, which also supplied the term porcelaine. China ware was so called from its resemblance to the polished exterior of the concha Veneris or some other similar shell, which, for reasons that cannot here be given, was called porcellana. The curious reader may find a clue by consulting Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, under the word porcile. In the time of Cromwell a duty of twenty shillings was paid on every dozen China dishes under a quart, and of sixty on those of a quart and upwards. See Oliverian acts, A. D. 1657.

Scene 2. Page 238.

She means "not before it is in season; not prematurely, as you would kill my brother."

Scene 2. Page 240.

This fine sentiment, which nevertheless contains a very obvious fault in the mode of expressing it, appears to have been suggested by the following lines in Ovid's Tristia, lib. ii., that Shakspeare might have read in Churchyard's translation:

Scene 2. Page 240.

There is much affinity between the above lines and these in Persius, sat. ii.:

But although there were two or three editions of that author published in England in the reign of Elizabeth, he does not appear to have been then translated.

Scene 2. Page 243.

Here is no metaphor from preserved fruits, as Warburton fancifully conceives. Preserved is used in its common and obvious acceptation. Isabella alludes to the prayers of her fellow nuns in addition to her own.

Scene 2. Page 246.

Enemy is here used for the Devil. See before in p. 62, 63.

Scene 4. Page 260.

It is Isabella's purpose to give an evasive or ambiguous answer to Angelo's strange question, and she accordingly does so. Or, if it have any meaning, it may be "I would even consent to your terms if I could save my soul, or if my soul did not thereby incur perdition."

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 272.

And in Pericles, Act III. Scene 2, "to please the fool and death." One note may serve for both these passages.

Dr. Warburton had conceived an allusion in the first speech to certain characters of death and the fool in the old moralities, in which, most unquestionably, they are not to be found, at least, in any which now remain. It is in this place that the latter part of Mr. Steevens's note on the passage in Pericles should have been introduced, with the following additional circumstances that had probably escaped the learned commentator's recollection; that his informant concerning the skeleton character at the fair remembered also to have seen another personage in the habit of a fool: and that arriving when the performances at the booth were finished for the evening, he could not succeed in procuring a repetition of the piece, losing thereby the means of all further information on the subject. It is therefore probable that the remainder of Dr. Warburton's note is correct, although he may have erred in his designation of this mummery. What connection the subject in question has with the old initial letter of death and the fool, and the dance of death, is shown in a note to Love's labour lost, vol. v. p. 316, and in another on the passage in Pericles, both of which should have been incorporated with the present.

Mr. Ritson, in correcting a remark made by the ingenious continuator of Ben Jonson's Sad shepherd, has inaccurately stated that the figures in the initial letter were "actually copied from the margin of an old missal." The letter that occurs in Stowe's Survey of London, edit. 1618, 4to, is only an enlarged but imperfect copy from another belonging to a regular dance of death used as initials by some of the Basil printers in the sixteenth century, and which, from the extraordinary skill that accompanies their execution, will ever rank amongst the finest efforts in the art of engraving on blocks of wood or metal. Most of the subjects in this dance of death have undoubtedly been supplied by that curious pageant of mortality which, during the middle ages, was so great a favourite as to be perpetually exhibited to the people either in the sculpture and painting of ecclesiastical buildings, or in the books adapted to the service of the church: yet some of them but ill accord with those serious ideas which the nature of the subject is calculated to inspire. In these the artist has indulged a vein of broad and satirical humour which was not wholly reserved for the caricaturists of modern times; and in one or two instances he has even overleaped the bounds of decency. The letter in Stowe's Survey is the only one that appears to have been imitated from the above alphabet; and as it throws some light on that part of the Duke's speech which occasioned the present note, it is here very accurately copied. It is to be remembered that in most of the old dances of death the subject of the fool is introduced: and it is, on the whole, extremely probable that some such representation might have suggested the image before us.

Scene 1. Page 285.

It is difficult to decide whether Shakspeare is here alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. May not the whole be a mere poetical rhapsody originating in the recollection of what he had read in books of Catholic divinity? for it is very certain that some of these were extremely familiar to him. Among them he might have seen a compilation on the pains of hell, entitled Examples howe mortall synne maketh the synners inobedyentes to have many paynes and dolours within the fyre of hell; black letter, no date, 12mo, and chiefly extracted from that once popular work, the Sermones discipuli, which contains at the end a promptuary of examples for the use of preachers. From this little volume it may be worth while to select the following passage, as according in some degree with the matter of Claudio's speech:—"he tolde that he sawe in hell a torment of an yzye ponde where the soules the whiche therin were tormented cryed so horryble that they were herde unto heven," sign. B. iij. "And the sayde beest was upon a ponde full of strong yse, the which beest devoured the soules within his wombe in suche maner that they became as unto nothynge by the tormentes that they suffred. Afterwarde he put them out of his wombe within the yse of the sayde ponde," sign. G. iij. "The caytyve was in syke wyse, for she myght not helpe herself, the whiche herde terryble cryes and howlynges of soules," sign. H. And again, "And the devyll was bounde by every joynture of all his membres with great chaynes of yron and of copre brennyng. And of great torment and vehement woodnes whereof he was full he turned hym from the one syde unto the other, and stretched out his handes in the multytude of the sayde soules, and toke them, and strayned them in lykewyse as men may do a clustre of grapes in theyr handes for to make the wyne come forth. And in such maner he strayned them that he eyther brake theyr heedes, or theyr fete, or handes, or some other membres. Afterward he syghed and blewe and dysperpeled the sayde soules into many of the tormentes of the fyre of hell," sign. H. iiij.

The following lines from the sixth book of Phaer's Virgil might have furnished some materials on the occasion:

In the old legend of Saint Patrick's purgatory mention is made of a lake of ice and snow, into which persons were plunged up to their necks; and in the Shepherd's calendar, chap, xviii. there is a description of hell as "the rewarde of them that kepen the X comaundements of the Devyll," in in which these lines occur:

Chaucer, in his Assemblie of foules, has given an abridgement of Cicero's dream of Scipio; and speaking of souls in hell, he says:

It was not until the seventh century that the doctrine of purgatory was confirmed, when "they held that departed souls expiated their sins by baths, ice, hanging in the air, &c.," says a curious writer on this subject. See Douglas's Vitis degeneris, 1668, 12mo, p. 77.

With respect to the much contested and obscure expression of bathing the delighted spirit in fiery floods, Milton appears to have felt less difficulty in its construction than we do at present; for he certainly remembered it when he made Comus say,

Scene 2. Page 295.

Mr. Tyrwhitt remarks that father friar is a blunder, and so indeed the Duke from his answer seems to consider it. Yet friars have often been addressed in this way; and a few pages further Escalus calls the Duke father, who had just been introduced to him as a friar. The Duke, indeed, soon after uses the term brother when speaking of himself. Whilst the passage quoted by Mr. Steevens gives support to Mr. Tyrwhitt's observation that friar is a corruption of the French frere, it seems to disprove his assertion that Elbow's phrase is erroneous.

Scene 2. Page 298.

None of the explanations of this speech are satisfactory, but least of all such part of a note by the author of these remarks, as refers to the picklock, which has been better accounted for by Mr. Ritson. It is probable, after all, that Lucio simply means to ask the clown if he has no newly-coined money wherewith to bribe the officers of justice, alluding to the portrait of the queen.

Scene 2. Page 308.

The old belief certainly was that tyrants in general swore lustily; but here seems to be a particular allusion to the character of Herod, in the mystery of The slaughter of the innocents, formerly acted by the city companies in their pageants, and of which those for Chester and Coventry are still preserved in the British Museum. In this curious specimen of our early drama, Herod is made to swear by Mahound, by cockes blood, &c. He is uniformly in a passion throughout the piece; and this, according to the stage direction, "Here Erode ragis," is exemplified by some extraordinary gesticulation. See the notes of Messrs. Steevens and Malone on a passage in Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

Scene 2. Page 310.

Mr. Reed has certainly adduced an instance which proves that resolved occasionally means satisfied, and we still talk of resolving difficulties, or a question in arithmetic; but in the passage before us it seems rather to signify resolute, firm, determined. Thus the allegorical romance of Le chevalier deliberé was translated into English in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, under the title of The resolved gentleman; and into Spanish by that of Il cavalero determinado.

ACT IV.

Scene 1. Page 318.

In the same sense Shylock says

It were better that Shakspeare should be thus made his own commentator where it can be done, than that he should be explained by quotations from other authors.

Scene 1. Page 319.

It is presumed that the sense of messengers annexed to this word by Mr. Ritson cannot be maintained, but that the very line he refers to establishes it to be searches, inquiries. Mr. Malone's note is, of the others, the most satisfactory. The Duke alludes to the false and various conclusions that result from investigating the actions of men high in office. There is an old pamphlet with the whimsical title of Jacke of Dover, his quest of inquiry, or his privy search for the veriest foole in England, 1604, 4to.

Scene 1. Page 321.

That is, decorate an action that would otherwise seem ugly. Two metaphors have already been suggested; a third remains to be stated. Flourish may, perhaps, allude to the ornaments that embellish the ancient as well as modern books of penmanship. There are no finer specimens of beautiful writing extant than some of the reign of Elizabeth, who herself wrote a very elegant Italian hand in the early part of her life.

Scene 2. Page 322.

Mr. Steevens makes unpitied, unmerciful; it is rather a whipping that none shall pity, for the reason that immediately follows.

Scene 2. Page 334.

This is a very different provost from one of whom Fabian in his Chronicle, p. 187, relates the following story: "In the thyrde yere of the reigne of this Philip, the provost of Paris, having in his prison a Picard, a man of greate riches, whiche for felony or like crime, was judged to be hanged. The sayde provost for great benefit to him done and payment of great summes by the sayd Pycard, tooke an other poore innocent man, and put him to death, in steede of the sayd Pycarde. Of the whiche offence whan due proofe of it was made before the kynges counsayle, the sayde provoste for the same dede was put unto like judgement."

Scene 3. Page 335.

The nefarious practice of lending young men money in the shape of goods which are afterwards sold at a great loss, appears to have been more prevalent in the reign of Elizabeth than even at present. It is very strongly marked in Lodge's Looking glasse for London and Englande, 1598, where a usurer being very urgent for the repayment of his debt is thus answered, "I pray you, sir, consider that my losse was great by the commoditie I tooke up; you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirtie pounds in lute strings, which when I came to sell againe, I could get but five pounds for them, so had I, sir, but fifteene pounds for my fortie: In consideration of this ill bargaine, I pray you, sir, give me a month longer." But this sort of usury is much older than Shakspeare's time, and is thus curiously described in one of the sermons of Father Maillard, a celebrated preacher at Paris at the end of the fifteenth century, and whose style very much resembles that of John Whitfield. "Quidam indigens pecunia venit ad thesaurarium supra quem fuerunt assignata mille scuta; dicit thesaurarius, Ego dabo tibi, sed pro nunc non habeo argentum; sed expectes usque ad quindecim dies. Pauper dicit, Non possum expectare; respondet thesaurarius, Dabo tibi unam partem in argento et alia in mercantiis: et illud quod valebit centum scuta, faciet valere ducenta. Hic est usura palliata." Sermo in feriam, iiii. de passione.

Scene 3. Page 337.

This spice was formerly held in very great repute, and especially among elderly persons. Sir Thomas Elyot in his Castle of health, 1580, 12mo, says, it comforts the head and stomach, and being green and well confectioned, quickens remembrance, if it be taken in a morning fasting. Henry Buttes, who wrote a whimsical book entitled Dyet's dry dinner, 1599, 12mo, speaks much in its praise, and says that being condite with honey it "warmes olde mens bellyes." In Ben Jonson's masque of The metamorphosed gipsies, a country wench laments the being robbed of "a dainty race of ginger;" and in the old play of The famous victories of Henry the fifth, a clown charges a thief with having "taken the great race of ginger, that bouncing Besse with the jolly buttocks should have had." In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the burning pestle, the citizen's wife gives a man who had been soundly beaten some green ginger to comfort him. Ginger was used likewise to spice ale. In Lodge's Looking glasse for London and England, the clown says, "Ile tell you, sir, if you did taste of the ale, all Ninivie hath not such a cup of ale, it floures in the cup, sir, by my troth I spent eleven pence, besides three rases of ginger." The numerous virtues of this root are likewise detailed in Vennor's Via recta ad vitam longam.

Scene 3. Page 342.

Some attempt to elucidate this name has been made in the first note to the Merchant of Venice, into which it is rather improperly introduced. Mr. Heath had supposed that Ragozine was put for Ragusan, i. e. a native of the city of Ragusa on the gulf of Venice, famous for its trading vessels; but it was incumbent on that gentleman to have shown that the inhabitants of the above city were pirates. This however would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible; for, on the contrary, Rycaut, in his State of the Ottoman empire, has expressly declared that the Ragusans never offered injury; but that, on receiving any, they very patiently supported it. Wherever Shakspeare met with the name of Ragozine, it should seem to be a metathesis of the French Argousin, or the Italian Argosino, i. e. an officer or lieutenant on board a galley; and, as Menage conjectures, a corruption of the Spanish Alguasil. See Carpentier, Suppl. ad gloss. Dufresne, under the word Argoisillo.

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 358.

The apparent difficulty in the last line proceeds from its elliptical construction; yet the meaning is sufficiently obvious. Isabella requests of the Duke to exert his reason to discover truth where it seems hid, and to suppress falsehood where it has the semblance of truth. Hide is, doubtless, a licentious word, but was used for the reason suggested by Mr. Malone.

Scene 1. Page 375.

There would have been little reason for dissenting from Mr. Henley's ingenious note, in which he supposes that this expression refers to the pillory, but for the subsequent remark by Lucio, "this may prove worse than hanging." It seems therefore more probable that "hang'd an hour" alludes to the time usually allotted for torturing the miserable object of the barbarous punishment by suspension, which is justly execrated by Randle Holme as "a dog's death," and always excites in the spectator a strange mixture of ludicrous and shocking sensations. It dishonours the living more than it degrades the criminal. The Turkish bowstring were much less offensive to the feelings of humanity: but the more solemn and decorous infliction of death, (if inflicted it must be,) would, as in military cases, be the stroke of the bullet, provided such a measure could be adopted without offending the soldier's honour. The pre-eminent mercy of the English law disdains to augment the horrors of premature dissolution by personal pain and torture; its object is to prevent or diminish the commission of the crime. On this principle, one could wish that, on the close of the usual necessary and consolatory preparation for death, some mode of stupefying the offender were adopted; that no sensation of torture on his part might be felt, nor any other on that of the spectator, than a satisfaction that the sentence of the law had been fulfilled. For this digression no apology can be necessary. As to Mr. Daines Barrington's supposition, that "the criminal was suspended in the air by the collistrigium or stretch-neck," a very little reflection will suffice to show that it is founded in error. Such a process would in half an hour's time most effectually prevent a repetition of the ceremony. The collistrigium was so called from the stretching out or projection of the neck through a hole made in the pillory for that purpose, or through an iron collar or carcan that was sometimes attached to the pillar itself. No punishment has been inflicted in so many different ways as that of the pillory; and therefore the following varieties of it have been thought worth exhibiting.

The first is from a manuscript of the Chronicle of Saint Denis, in the British Museum, Bibl. Reg. 16. G. vi. It was written in the thirteenth century. The second occurs in a manuscript of Froissart, preserved in the same collection. The third is copied from a print in Comenius's Orbis pictus, and furnishes a specimen of the carcan, the woman being confined to the pillar by an iron ring or collar. The fourth is from a table of the standard of ancient weights and measures in the exchequer, and shows the mode of punishing a forestaller or regrator in the time of Henry the Seventh. The fifth exhibits Robert Ockam in the pillory for perjury. The fact happened in the reign of Henry the Eighth, but the cut is copied from Fox's Martyrs, published long afterwards. The sixth and last figure represents an ancient pillory that formerly stood in the market-place of the village of Paulmy in Touraine. It is copied from a view of the castle of Paulmy in Belleforest's Cosmographie universelle, 1575, folio. Not long since there was remaining in the Section des halles at Paris an old hexangular building of stone, with open Gothic windows, through which appeared an iron circle or carcan, with holes for placing the hands and necks of several persons at the same time, in like manner as in the first and last figures. There is an engraving of it in Millin's Antiquités nationales, tom. iii. no. 34.

Scene 1. Page 378.

Mr. Malone thinks double refers to Angelo's conduct to Mariana and Isabel; but surely, however inaccurate the expression, it alludes to Angelo's double misconduct to Isabella, in having attempted her chastity, and violated his promise with respect to her brother. Thus in Promos and Cassandra:

In Cinthio Giraldi's novel, it is "Vous avez commis deux crimes fort grans, l'un d'avoir diffamé cette jeune femme, par telle tromperie que l'on peut dire que vous l'avez forcée: l'autre d'avoir fait mourir son frere contre la foy à elle donnée." Transl. by Chappuys, 1584.

Scene 1. Page 385.

Mr. Steevens has refined too much in supposing this word to mean carnal offences. It is simply penalties. The Duke remits all Lucio's offences except the injury done to the woman, and he is ordered to remain in prison until he marry her. Forfeit was also used in the French sense of the word, crime, transgression.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play officiates as the tapster of a brothel; whence it has been concluded that he is not a domestic fool, nor ought to appear in the dress of that character. A little consideration will serve to show that the opinion is erroneous, that this clown is altogether a domestic fool, and that he should be habited accordingly. In Act II. Scene 1, Escalus calls him a tedious fool, and Iniquity, a name for one of the old stage buffoons. He tells him that he will have him whipt, a punishment that was very often inflicted on fools. In Timon of Athens we have a strumpet's fool, and a similar character is mentioned in the first speech in Antony and Cleopatra. But if any one should still entertain a doubt on the subject, he may receive the most complete satisfaction by an attentive examination of ancient prints, many of which will furnish instances of the common use of the domestic fool in brothels. In Twelfth Night, Act IV. Scene 1, Sebastian mistakes the clown for such a character as that before us, and calls him a foolish Greek, a term that is very happily explained by Dr. Warburton, whose note both communicates and receives support on the present occasion.

ON THE STORY AND CONSTRUCTION OF MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Three sources whence the plot of this play might have been extracted, have already been mentioned, viz. Whetstone's Heptameron, 1582, 4to; his Promos and Cassandra, 1578, 4to; and novel 5, decad. 8, in Cinthio Giraldi. It is probable that the general outline of the story is founded on fact, as it is related, with some variety of circumstance, by several writers, and appears to have been very popular. It has therefore been thought worth while to point out the following works in which it occurs.

In Lipsii Monita et exempla politica, Antverp. 1613, 4to, cap. viii. Charles the bold duke of Burgundy causes one of his noblemen to be put to death for offending in the manner that Angelo would have done; but he is first compelled to marry the lady. This story has been copied from Lipsius into Wanley's Wonders of the little world, book iii. ch. 29, edit. 1678, folio; and from Wanley into that favourite little chap book, Burton's Unparalleled varieties, p. 42. See likewise The spectator, No. 491. This event was made the subject of a French play by Antoine Maréchal, called Le jugement équitable de Charles le hardy, 1646, 4to. Here the offender is called Rodolph governor of Maestrick, and by theatrical licence turns out to be the duke's own son. Another similar story of Charles's upright judgment may be found in the third volume of Goulart's Thrésor d'histoires admirables, 1628, 8vo, p. 373.

Much about the time when the above events are supposed to have happened, Olivier le Dain, for his wickedness surnamed the Devil, originally the barber, and afterwards the favourite of Louis XI., is said to have committed a similar offence, for which he was deservedly hanged. See Godefroy's edition of the Memoirs of Philip de Comines, Brussels, 1723, 8vo, tom. v. p. 55.

At the end of Belleforest's translation of Bandello's novels, there are three additional of his own invention. The first of these relates to a captain, who, having seduced the wife of one of his soldiers under a promise to save the life of her husband, exhibited him soon afterwards through the window of his apartment suspended on a gibbet. His commander, the marshal de Brissac, after compelling him to marry the widow, adjudges him to death. The striking similitude of a part of this story to what Mr. Hume has related of colonel Kirke, will present itself to every reader, and perhaps induce some to think with Mr. Ritson, (however they will differ in his mode of expressing the sentiment,) that Mr. Hume's narration is "an impudent and barefaced lie." See The quip modest, p. 30. A defence also of Kirke may be seen in the Monthly magazine, vol. ii. p. 544. Yet though we may be inclined to adopt this side of the question, it will only serve to diminish, in a single instance, the atrocities of that sanguinary monster.

In Lupton's Siuqila. Too good to be true, 1580, 4to, there is a long story of a woman, who, her husband having slain his adversary in a duel, goes to the judge for the purpose of prevailing on him to remit the sentence of the law. He obtains of her, in the first place, a large sum of money, and afterwards the reluctant prostitution of her person, under a solemn promise to save her husband. The rest, as in Belleforest's novel.

In vol. i. of Goulart's Thrésor d'histoires admirables, above cited, there are two stories on this subject. The first, in p. 300, is of a citizen of Como in Italy, who in 1547 was detained prisoner by a Spanish captain on a charge of murder. The wife pleads for him as before, and obtains a promise of favour on the same terms. The husband recommends her compliance, after which the Spaniard beheads him. Complaint is made to the Duke of Ferrara, who compels the captain to marry the widow, and then orders him to be hanged. The other, in p. 304, is of a provost named La Vouste, whose conduct resembles that of the other villain's, with this addition; he says to the woman, "I promised to restore your husband; I have not kept him, here he is." No punishment is inflicted on this fellow.

The last example to be mentioned on this occasion occurs in Cooke's Vindication of the professors and profession of the law, 1646, 4to, p. 61. During the wars between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, one Raynucio had been imprisoned at Milan for betraying a fort to the French. His wife petitions the governor Don Garcias in his favour, who refuses to listen but on dishonourable terms, which are indignantly rejected. The husband, like Claudio in Measure for measure, at first commends the magnanimity of his wife, and submits to his sentence; but when the time for his execution approaches, his courage fails him, and he prevails on his wife to acquiesce in the governor's demands. A sum of ten thousand crowns is likewise extorted from the unhappy woman, and she receives in return the dead body of her husband. The Duke of Ferrara, Hercules of Este, who was general for the Emperor, is informed of the circumstance. He first persuades the governor to marry the lady, and then orders him to be beheaded.

Towards the conclusion of this play Dr. Johnson has observed, that "every reader feels some indignation when he finds Angelo spared." This remark is rigorously just, and calculated to satisfy those moralists who would have preferred the catastrophe in some of the preceding stories. But in the construction of a play theatrical effect was to be attended to; on which ground alone the poet may be defended. The other charge against him in Dr. Johnson's note is doubtless unfounded, and even laboriously strained. Shakspeare has been likewise hastily censured by a female writer of great ingenuity, for almost every supposed deviation from the plot of Cinthio's novel, and even for adhering to it in sparing Angelo.[9] It might however be contended, that, if our author really used this novel,[10] he has, with some exceptions, exerted a considerable degree of skill and contrivance in his alterations; and that he has consequently furnished a rich and diversified repast for his readers, instead of serving up the simple story in the shape of such a tragedy as might have suited a Greek audience, but certainly would not have pleased an English one in his time. In the novel, the sister, when she solicits mercy for her brother's murderer and her own seducer, (in the play Angelo is neither but in intention,) justly urges that excess of justice becomes cruelty. He therefore who would refuse mercy to Angelo for an intentional offence, has no right to censure him for severity to Claudio who had committed a real one. In the novel, the sister is actually seduced, and her brother murdered; and yet she pleads for the offender. In the play, though Isabella believes her brother to be dead, she reconciles herself to the sad event, inasmuch as she knows that he suffered by course of law, as well as by the cruelty of Angelo, from whose iniquity she herself has happily escaped. She is stimulated to solicit this man's life, from the suggestion and situation of her friend the innocent Mariana, who would have felt more distress from the death of Angelo, than the other parties discontent from his acquittal. The female critic has likewise observed that "Measure for measure ought not to be the title, since justice is not the virtue it inculcates." But surely, if Angelo had died, it would have been outmeasuring measure; as it is, the administration of justice is duly balanced, and both he and Claudio are equally punished in imagination. The Duke too, who knew all the circumstances, deserves credit for some ingenuity in his arrangements to protect the innocent, and, if not rigidly to punish the guilty, at least to save a sinner. Nor will any one contend that Angelo has escaped punishment: the agonizing state of uncertainty in which he long remained after the mock sentence, the bitter reproof of his colleague, and the still severer language of the Duke, will, it is to be hoped, conduce to satisfy every feeling and humane spectator of this fine play, that the poet has done enough to content even the rigorous moralist, and to exemplify, in his own divine words, that "earthly power doth then seem likest heaven's, when mercy seasons justice."