66

I am COMBINED"-i. e. Bound by agreement: in the same sense as Angelo is called the combinate husband of Mariana.

"the old fantastical Duke of dark corners"Schlegel has some very just remarks concerning the character of the Duke, and the way in which Shakespeare incidentally informs us of his peculiarities from the mouth of Lucio. The Duke loves justice and truth, but it is his "crotchet" to attain them by crooked ways, and by lurking in disguises. "The interest (says Schlegel) reposes altogether on the action: curiosity constitutes no part of our delight; for the Duke, in the disguise of a monk, is always present to watch over his dangerous representatives, and to avert every evil which could possibly be apprehended. The Duke acts the part of the monk naturally, even to deception; he unites in his person the wisdom of the priest and the prince. His wisdom is inerely fond of too roundabout ways: his vanity is flattered by acting invisibly, like an earthly providence; he is more entertained with overhearing his subjects than governing them in the ordinary manner. As he at last extends pardon to all the guilty, we do not see how his original purpose of restoring the strictness of the laws, by com initting the execution of them to other hands, has in any wise been accomplished." Hazlitt thinks he was "more absorbed in his own plots and gravity than anxious for the welfare of the state; more tenacious of his own character than attentive to the feelings and apprehensions of others." All this seems true; and yet we feel that the Duke, however "fantastical," is an excellent man. He loves justice, but mercy still more.

"BEHOLDING to your reports”—The active instead of the passive participle was in general use at the time, and there is no reason for altering it. It is what Shakespeare wrote.

"a better wOODMAN than thou takest him for"— i. e. One who hunted after women as the woodman hunts after deer; from the double meaning of deer, and dear:

"Well, well, son John,

I see you are a woodman, and can choose Your deer, though it be i' the dark.”

SCENE IV.

66

makes me UN PREGNANT"-Stevens remarks that in the first scene the Duke says that Escalus is pregnant (i. e. ready in the forms of law.) 'Unpregnant,' therefore, in the instance before us, is unready, unprepared.

"Yet reason dares her No"-This very obscure line is printed, in our text, as it is in the first copies. Stevens and other editors have thought to make the sense plainer by pointing it thus:-" Yet reason dares her?— No." Dare was often used in the sense of terrify, overawe; as in Beaumont and Fletcher

These mad mischiefs

Would dare a woman.

In this sense we understand the passage thus:-" She might accuse me. Yet reason (prudence) terrifies her to the contrary." The use of "no," in this way, is very intelligible, colloquially, and may be found in the old dramatists. Thus, Beaumont and Fletcher have"I charged him no;" "to satisfy the world no." The other punctuation is thus explained:-"Yet does not reason challenge or incite her to the accusation? No; for my authority," etc. Or else in the other sense of dare, (to embolden :)" Will not reason embolden

her? No." It is, after all, quite possible that the obscurity here, as in other passages of this play, arises from a typographical error, the true reading of which has not yet been discovered.

66

- my authority bears or a credent bulk"-This is ordinarily printed, "bears off a credent bulk;" or else "of" is omitted. We follow the original. "Of" seems used, as often in Old-English, in a partitive or indefinite sense; as if he had said, "some credent bulk." In this way we find, in the MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM"I desire you of more acquaintance." So, in a contemporary poet, Warner-"His ghost commandeth me of aid."

SCENE VI.

"GENEROUS and gravest citizens"-" Generous" is here used in its Latin sense, for noble, of rank and birth. "Gravest," too, is in its less usual and Latin sense, for weightiest, most respected.

"HENT the gates"-i. e. Have taken possession of the gates. The word "hent" is derived from the Saxon hentan-to catch, or lay hold of. Shakespeare has it again in the WINTER'S TALE-"And merrily hent the stile-a." Hint has the same etymology, as Horne Tooke has observed. "Hent" was in use among the contemporaries of Spenser and Shakespeare.

"hide the false SEEMS TRUE"-Malone interprets this "For ever hide-i. e. plunge into eternal darkness-the false one, Angelo, who now seems honest." Looking to the elliptical construction which prevails in this play, the meaning appears to be, clearly enoughDraw the truth from obscurity, and obscure the false which now seems true. The "seems true" is taken as one compounded word, and used substantively.

"as LIKE, as it is TRUE"-The Duke says, in derision, "This is most likely;" and Isabella replies by a wish that it had as much the appearance of truth as it had of the reality.

—FOND wretch"-i. e. Foolish wretch. (See note. act ii. scene 2" Fond shekels," etc.)

"In COUNTENANCE"-i. e. In the sanctified presence and face of Angelo.

"— TEMPORARY meddler"-This seems to me plain enough, taking "temporary" for temporal, in opposition to the "man divine and holy." He is not a " meddler" in temporal matters.

"I'll be IMPARTIAL"-"Impartial," like several other words with the prefix im, bore, in Old-English. two senses, directly contradictory; and the use vibrated between them. Im is sometimes the negative, and sometimes merely intensive. Here it is taken literally. The Duke will take no part, whatever. He will leave it to the just judge to decide his own cause.

"-short of COMPOSITION"-Her fortune, which was promised proportionate to mine, fell short of the " composition"-i. e. contract, or bargain.

"Nor here PROVINCIAL"-" The different orders of monks (says M. Mason) have a chief, who is called the general of the order; and they have also superiors, subordinate to the general, in the several provinces through which the order may be dispersed. The friar, therefore, means to say, that the Duke dares not touch a finger of his; for he could not punish him by his own authority, as he was not his subject, nor through that of the superior, as he was not of that province."

"the FORFEITS in a barber's shop"-" Barbers' shops were anciently places of great resort for passing away time in an idle manner. By way of enforcing some kind of regularity, and, perhaps, at least as much to promote drinking, certain laws were usually hung up, the transgression of which was to be punished by specific forfeits;' which were as much in mock as mark, because the barber had no authority of himself to enforce them, and also because they were of a ludicrous nature."-SINGER.

Young Talbot was not born

To be the pillage of a giglot wench.

"Measure still for Measure"-"The play (says Schlegel) takes its name improperly from the punishment: the sense of the whole is properly the triumph of mercy over strict justice; no man being himself so secure from error as to be entitled to deal it out among his equals. The most beautiful ornament of this composition is the character of Isabella, who, in the intention of taking the veil, allows herself to be prevailed on by pious love again to tread the perplexing ways of the world; while the heavenly purity of her mind is not even stained with one unholy thought by the general corruption. In the heavenly robes of the novice of a nunnery, she is a true angel of light." Hazlitt's criticism is acute, but wants a true sympathy with the author's feelings and objects:-"This is a play as full of genius as it is of wisdom. But there is a general want of passion; the affections are at a stand: our sympathies are repulsed and defeated in all directions. The only passion which influences the story is that of Angelo; and yet he seems to have a much greater passion for hypocrisy than for his mistress. Neither are we greatly enamoured of Isabella's rigid chastity, though she could not act otherwise than she did. We do not feel the same confidence in the virtue that is sublimely good' at another's expense, as if it had been put to some more disinterested issue." The same writer, after remarking on the equivocal character and situation in the drama of the Duke, Claudio, and the love of Mariana for Angelo, at whose conduct we revolt, adds, that 'in this respect there may be said to be a general system of cross-purposes between the feelings of the different characters, and the sympathies of the reader or the audience."

56

BETH,

"MEASURE FOR MEASURE, commonly referred to the end of 1603, is perhaps, after HAMLET, LEAR, and MACthe play in which Shakespeare struggles, as it were, most with the overmastering power of his own mind: the depths and intricacies of being which he has searched and sounded, with intense reflection, perplex and harass him; his personages arrest their course of action to pour forth, in language the most remote from common use, thoughts which few could grasp in the clearest expression; and thus he loses something of dramatic excellence in that of his contemplative philos ophy. The Duke is designed as the representative of this philosophical character. He is stern and melancholy by temperament, averse to the exterior shows of power, and secretly conscious of some unfitness for its practical duties. The subject is not very happily chosen, but artfully improved by Shakespeare. In most of the numerous stories of a similar nature, which before or since his time have been related, the sacrifice of chastity is really made, and made in vain. There is, however, something too coarse and disgusting in such a story; and it would have deprived him of a splendid exhibition of character. The virtue of Isabella, inflexible and independent of circumstance, has something very grand and elevated; yet one is disposed to ask, whether, if Claudio had been really executed, the spectator would not have gone away with no great affection for her; and at least we now feel that her reproaches against her miserable brother, when he clings to life like a frail and guilty being, are too harsh. There is great skill in the invention of Mariana, and without this the story could not have had any thing like a satisfactory termination: yet it is never explained how the Duke had become acquainted with this secret, and, being acquainted with it. how he had preserved his esteem and confidence in Angelo. His intention, as hinted towards the end, to marry Isabella, is a little too common-place; it is one of Shakespeare's hasty half-thoughts. The language of this comedy is very obscure, and the text seems to have been printed with great inaccuracy. I do not value the comic parts highly; Lucio's impudent profligacy, the result rather of sensual debasement than of natural illdisposition, is well represented; but Elbow is a very inferior repetition of Dogberry. In dramatic effect. MEASURE FOR MEASURE stands high; the two scenes between Isabella and Angelo, that between her and Claudio, those where the Duke appears in disguise, and the catastrophe in the fifth act, are admirably written and very interesting-except so far as the spectator's knowledge of the two stratagems, which have deceived Angelo, may prevent him from participating in the indignation at Isabella's imaginary wrong, which her lamentations would excite. Several of the circumstances and characters are borrowed from the old play of Whetstone, Promos and Cassandra;' but very little of the sentiments or language. What is good in MEASURE FOR MEASURE is Shakespeare's own."-HALLAM, Literature of Europe.