vanity of the character in reference to his situation. But if we laugh at Malvolio we are not to laugh ill-naturedly, for the poet has conducted all the mischief against him in a spirit in which there is no real malice at the bottom of the fun. Sir Toby is a most genuine character,-one given to strong potations and boisterous merriment; but with a humour about him perfectly irresistible. His abandon to the instant opportunity of laughing at and with others is something so thoroughly English, that we are not surprised the poet gave him an English name. And like all genuine humorists Sir Toby must have his butt. What a trio is presented in that glorious scene of the second act, where the two Knights and the Clown "make the welkin dance;"-the humorist, the fool, and the philosopher!—for Sir Andrew is the fool, and the Clown is the philosopher. We hold the Clown's epilogue song to be the most philosophical Clown's song upon record; and a treatise might be written upon its wisdom. It is the history of a life, from the condition of “a little tiny boy," through "man's estate," to decaying age—“when I | came unto my bed;" and the conclusion is, that what is true of the individual is true of the species, and what was of yesterday was of generations long past away-for "A great while ago the world begun." Steevens says this "nonsensical ditty" is utterly unconnected with the subject of the comedy. We think he is mistaken. CHAPTER III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. THIS comedy was first printed in the folio collection of 1623, and there had been no previous claim to the right of printing it made by any entry in the registers of the Stationers' Company. We are very much inclined to think, from the state of the original text, that the editors of the first folio possessed no copy but that from which they printed. Some of the sentences throughout the play are so involved that they have very little the appearance of being taken from a copy which had been used by the actors; and in two cases a word is found in the text (prenzie) which could never have been given upon the stage, and appears to have been inserted by the printer in despair of deciphering the author's manuscript. On the other hand, the metrical arrangement, which has been called rough, redundant, and irregular," was strictly copied, we have no doubt, from the author's original; for a printer does not mistake the beginnings and ends of blank-verse lines, although little attention might be paid to such matters in a prompter's book. The peculiar structure 66 of the versification in this comedy was, we are satisfied, the result of the author's system; and, from the integrity with which it has been preserved in the first edition, we believe that the original manuscript passed directly through the hands of the printer, who made the best of it without any reference to other copies. We cannot trace that any allusion to 'Measure for Measure' is to be found in the works of Shakspere's contemporaries. There is, indeed, a passage in a poem published in 1607 which conveys the same idea as a passage in Measure for Measure :'— "And like as when some sudden extasy Seizeth the nature of a sickly man; When he's discern'd to swoon, straight by and by Folk to his help confusedly have ran, And seeking with their art to fetch him back, So many throng, that he the air doth lack." (Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis,' by William Barksted.) The following is the parallel passage in the comedy : "So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; Come all to help him, and so stop the air By which he should revive." Malone says of this coincidence, "That 'Measure for Measure' was written before 1607 may be fairly concluded from the following passage in a poem published in that year, which we have good ground to believe was copied from a similar thought in this play, as the author, at the end of his piece, professes a personal regard for Shakspeare, and highly praises his 'Venus and Adonis." The other arguments of Malone as to the date of this play, which he assigns to 1603, have reference to public circumstances. Chalmers contends for the date of 1604. Conjectures such as these are too often laborious trifling. But, for once, they are pretty nearly borne out by incontrovertible testimony. The perseverance of Mr. Peter Cunningham has been rewarded by discovering in the Audit Office certain passages in the original Office Books of the Masters and Yeomen of the Revels, which fix the date of the representation at Court of some of Shakspere's plays. The Office Book shows that Measure for Measure' was presented at Court by the King's Players in 1604. The Promos and Cassandra' of George Whetstone, printed in 1578, but not acted, was, there can be no doubt, the foundation upon which Shakspere built his Measure for Measure.' Whetstone tells us in a subsequent work that he constructed his play upon a novel of Giraldi Cinthio, of which he gives us a translation; observing, "This history, for rareness thereof, is livelily set out in a comedy by the reporter of the work, but yet never presented upon stage.”+ The performance of Whetstone, as might be expected in a drama of that date, is feeble and monotonous, not informed with any real dramatic power, drawling or bombastic in its tragic parts, extravagant in its comic. It is scarcely necessary to offer to our readers any parallel examples of the modes in which Whetstone and Shakspere have treated the same incidents. Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd." In the midst of the most business-like and familiar directions occur these eight words of the highest poetry. By a touch almost magical Shakspere takes us in an instant out of that dark prison, where we have been surrounded with crime and suffering, to make us see the morning star bright over the hills, and hear the tinkle of the sheep-bell in the folds, and picture the shepherd bidding the flock go forth to pasture, before the sun has lighted up the dewy lawns. In the same way, throughout this very extraordinary drama, in which the whole world is represented as one great prison-house, full of passion, and ignorance, and sorrow, we have glimpses every now and then of something beyond, where there shall be no alternations of mildness and severity, but a condition of equal justice, serene as the valley under "the unfolding star,” and about to rejoice in the dayspring. The little passage which we have quoted is one amongst the numberless poetical gems which are scattered up and down this comedy with a profusion such as only belongs to one poet. It has been said of Shakspere, "He is the text for the moralist and the philosopher. His bright wit is cut out into little stars; his solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs; and, thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner which he does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich.”* This is by no means his highest praise, and his 'Beauties' give a very imperfect idea of his attributes; but certainly no other man ever wrote single sentences that to such an extent have now become mixed up with the habits of thought of millions of human beings. This play appears to us especially glittering with these "little stars." We cannot open a scene in which we do not encounter some passage that has set us thinking at some moment of our lives. Of such distinct passages, which the memory never parts from, the following will be recognised by all as familiar friends:— "Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues * Retrospective Review,' vol. vii. p. 381. Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd But to fine issues." "Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing Barnardine, one of the most extraordinary of Shakspere's creations, will produce little beyond disgust in the casual reader. But these have, nevertheless, not crept into this drama by accident-certainly not from the desire to make the unskilful laugh." Per That none but fools would keep a breath haps the effect of their introduction, coupled thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,) with the general subject of the dramatic action, is to render the entire comedy not "This play, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, pleasurable. Coleridge says, Hourly afflict." "Merciful heaven! which is Shakspeare's throughout, is to me the most painful—say, rather, the only pain Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous ful-part of his genuine works." This is a bolt, Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, "The sense of death is most in apprehension; We select these, contrary to our usual practice of not separating the parts from the whole, for the purpose of pointing out that there is something deeper in them than the power of expressing a moral observation strikingly and poetically. They are imbued with the writer's philosophy. They form a part of the system upon which the play is written. But, opposed to passages like these, there are many single sentences scattered through this drama which, so far from dwelling on with pleasure, we hurry past-which we like not to look upon again—which appear to be mere grossnesses. They are, nevertheless, an integral portion of the dramathey also form part of the system upon which the play is written. What is true of single passages is true of single scenes. Those between Isabella and Angelo, and Isabella and Claudio, are unsurpassed in the Shaksperean drama, for force, and beauty, and the delicate management of a difficult subject. But there are other scenes which appear simply revolting, such as those in which the Clown is conspicuous; and even strong opinion; and, upon the whole, a just one. But it requires explanation. The general outline of the story upon which Measure for Measure' is founded is presented to us in such different forms, and with reference to such distinct times and persons, that, whether historically true or not, we can have no doubt of its universal interest. It is told of an officer of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; of Oliver le Diable, the wicked favourite of Louis XI.; of Colonel Kirke, in our own country; of a captain of the Duke of Ferrara. In all these cases an unhappy woman sacrifices her own honour for the promised safety of one she loves; and in all, with the exception of the case of Colonel Kirke, the abuser of authority is punished with death. Whatever interest may attach to the narrative of such an event, it is manifest that the dramatic conduct of such a story is full of difficulty, especially in a scrupulous age. public opinion, which, in this particular, would operate upon a dramatist in our own day, would not affect a writer for the stage in the times of Elizabeth and James; and, in point of fact, plots far more offensive became the subject of very popular dramas long after the times of Shakspere. It ap pears to us that, adopting such a subject in its general bearings, he has managed it with uncommon adroitness by his deviations from the accustomed story. By introducing a contrivance by which the heroine is not sacrificed, he preserves our respect for her, which would be involuntarily lost if she fell, even though against her own will; and by this management he is also enabled to spare But the the great offender without an unbearable | shrinking and half ashamed is her first supviolation of our sense of justice. But there plication to Angelo. She is as severe in her was a higher aim in this even than the en- abstract view of guilt as the stern deputy deavour to produce a great dramatic effect. himself: It may be convenient if we first regard this comedy as a work of art, constructed with reference to the production of such dramatic effect. Without referring, then, to the peculiar character of the Duke, and his secret objects in delegating 'mercy and mortality" to Angelo, we have to look only at the sudden and severe sentence which the fault of Claudio has called down upon him, and at the circumstances which arise out of the intervention of Isabella to procure a remission of his punishment. This is the simple view of the matter which we find in the novel of Cinthio, in Whetstone's play of 'Promos and Cassandra,' and in the pseudohistorical stories which deal with the same popular legend. It is in this point of view that we may consider the character of Isabella, acting upon one single and direct principle, without reference to the machinery of which she afterwards forms a part for carrying out the complicated management of the Duke. She is a being separated from all the evil influences-criminal, or ignorant, or weak-by which she is surrounded. In the eyes of the habitual profligate with whom she comes in contact she is "There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice." At the first repulse she is abashed and would retire. She is the cloistress, to whom semblance of excusing it; but she gradually it appears that to plead for guilt has the recollects that mercy, as well as justice, is warms into sympathy and earnestness. She amongst the divine attributes. She first truth:ventures upon the enunciation of a general "No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does." But this general truth leads her to the declaration of the higher truth which she has most studied : "Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy: How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made." From this moment she is self-possessed; and she stands before the organ of power pouring forth an impassioned eloquence with all the authority of a heavenly messenger. Then she is bold, even to the point of attacking the self-consciousness of the individual judge: "Go to your bosom ; Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth know That's like my brother's fault: if it confess A natural guiltiness, such as is his, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life." And at last, when she believes he will relent, she offers him no thanks, she supplicates him with no tears; but she promises him the re Few and timid are her words to Lucio; ward of "True prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere sunrise." The foundation of Isabella's character is religion. In the second scene with Angelo the same spirit breathes in every line. Her humility "Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, "Were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, The alter constituted and so educated? And strip myself to death, as to a bed yield;" her simplicity, that believes for a moment He is to be sorely tempted; and his sister "O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Is her burst of passion, when her fears be- "What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far, That it becomes a virtue," is that terrible indignation, "take my defiance," unnatural or unjust in a mind so and she therefore habitually gives us criticism as true and as beautiful as that which we now extract:— "Nor should we fail to remark the deeper interest which is thrown round Isabella, by rather than exhibited, in the progress of the one part of her character, which is betrayed, action; and for which we are not at first prepared, though it is so perfectly natural. It is the strong under-current of passion and enthusiasm flowing beneath this calm and saintly self-possession; it is the capacity for high feeling, and generous and strong in dignation, veiled beneath the sweet austere composure of the religious recluse, which, by the very force of contrast, powerfully impress the imagination. As we see in real bitual cause, a strong control is exercised life that where, from some external or haover naturally quick feelings and an impetuous temper, they display themselves with a proportionate vehemence when that restraint is removed; so the very violence with which her passions burst forth, when opposed or under the influence of strong excitement, is admirably characteristic." The leading idea, then, of the character of Isabella, is that of one who abides the direst temptation which can be presented to a youthful, innocent, unsuspecting, and af fectionate woman-the temptation of saving the life of one most dear, by submitting to a |