simplest and most striking manner, that wonderful difference between one poetry and another, which exhibits our poet as so unique and distinct. What a richness of reflection do we meet with in Shakespeare, when we search into the elements of the facts before us! What a depth in the characters, compelling attention from us, even before we see them entangled in such painful intricacies! What a boldness in bringing the very noblest characters into these same odious intricacies, just as if he aimed at multiplying the difficulties, and contradictions of the plot! And then, what a careful construction of circumstances, so that from the outset our apprehension is calmed as to the gloomy incidents, and we are allowed to anticipate an end, not altogether disastrous!

And first of all, in how masterly a manner is the ground prepared, on which the poet has placed the scene of these habits, characters, and incidents! The scene is laid in Vienna. Moral corruption here "boils and bubbles till it o'erruns", society is destroyed by it, and all decorum is lost. We cast a glance into the prisons and brothels, which allows us to estimate the extent and shamelessness of the prevailing licentiousness; in the streets we see dissolute fellows, who make full use of the freedom, with which low manners may evade the law. Debauchery has become a common custom. Every mind seems occupied with transactions and matters of this kind. He who has never exposed himself to evil report, like Angelo, is not regarded as a sound and perfect man; the Duke, who has never had intercourse with women, escapes not the poisonous tongue of Lucio, the lightminded calumniator; and even in the cloister, where the Duke hides himself, Friar Thomas

believes at first, that an affair of gallantry drives him to that place of secrecy. Existing restraints are cast down; unbridled liberty plucks justice by the nose; law, like an unused rod to the child, is rather mocked at than feared. There is a severe old statute, which awards the punishment of death to unchastity. It has been set aside as too severe for fourteen years, or as Claudio, whom it subsequently touches, says exaggeratingly, for "nineteen zodiacks”, and it has fallen into oblivion. It was a scare-crow, says Angelo, which from custom and want of motion was become rather a perch for birds of prey than their terror.

The reigning Duke, who had thus allowed this law to slumber, had done so from kindness of heart and innate mildness. He thinks himself justified in bearing testimony to himself, that even to the envious he must appear a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. He confesses that high moral view, that the ruler and judge ought to be as holy as he is severe, a pattern in himself, "grace to stand and virtue go"; he considers him as a tyrant, who punishes in others the faults into which he falls himself. His whole nature is that of a man of moderation, gentleness, and calmness, his whole endeavour that of a circumspect philosopher. He loves his people, but he relishes not their loud applause and thronging, nor does he think the man of safe discretion, that affects it. He has a leaning to solitude, and plays the part of a friar perhaps even better, than that of a statesman; his earnest endeavour was ever to know himself, but also to know men and to test the instruments of his rule, seemed to be a kind of necessity with him. This circumspect wisdom, never seeing things imperfectly or from one point of view, shows itself also in his conduct.

respecting the morality or immorality of the people of Vienna, which by degrees had attained to such a height, that the prince could no longer remain inactive. He is himself not of a sensual nature, but he does not, like Angelo, judge those who are so, with unreasonable severity and strictness. In this mild spirit he has allowed those severe laws to slumber, but by this he has given free course to crime; these fruits of his kindness rouse him into seeking a remedy. But even while he now has recourse to severity, he allows the same two-sided consideration to rule, which is throughout peculiar to him: he reflects, that it would be tyrannical in him, if he, who by his lenity had first given a free passage to sin, should all of a sudden turn to rigour. He therefore withdraws himself, and imposes on a deputy this office of making the change from the hitherto lax administration of justice to a new inculcation of the old, neglected, and severe laws.

For this post he chooses, with a well-weighed and "leavened" purpose, not Escalus, the man who first ought to come in question, who is next the duke in rank and is like him of a wise moderation and upright spirit, endowed with all the qualities of a great justiciary and statesman, but the younger Angelo, whose severe morals and firm discretion appear exactly to recommend him as suitable for bringing back the sharper discipline. A sacred halo surrounds this man, who enjoys an unapproachable reputation for integrity and purity of life. In the strange phenomenon of an isolated stoic in the midst of a Sybarite city, we see him with a serious suitable bearing, with sober countenance and well considered words, as if he would frighten away all kind of levity. The Duke calls him severe and precise; he scarcely

allows that his blood flows, or that "his appetite is more to bread than stone". In the eyes of the wanton debauchees he is a man "whose blood is very snow-broth"; one who has blunted the natural stings of the senses with profits of the mind, study, and fast. In the silent deliberations of his own soul he can confess to himself, that sensual delight never stirred his temper, and that "when men were fond", he smiled as at a contemptible and incredible thing. When Escalus subsequently on his severity towards the immoral, reminds him of the possibility of a similar crime on his side, he hesitates not to call down upon himself punishment and blame, and proudly to answer: ""Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall". That this virtue and sobriety in such extreme youth is constrained and exaggerated, is evidenced by the anxious care with which Angelo lays greater stress upon outward appearance than upon inward reality. He is continually upon his guard against envy, he has the most nervous ambition never for a moment to lose his irreproachable reputation. This ambition, this pride in his virtue, he hardly even ventures to confess to himself in his soliloquies. This ambition is closely connected with his aspiring endeavour after outward rank and dignity. He has buried himself in the study of politics and law, over these grave employments he has really repressed his ardour and affections, he has formed equally severe and uncompromising principles for his moral life and conduct, for a knowledge of law and for the exercise of politics and justice, so that with all these qualities he may advance himself on the path of honour.

It is these unnaturally strained endeavours that the psychological Duke observes in the useful, promising young

man thus richly endowed by nature. He appears to distrust his political as well as his moral ambition, and he welcomes the opportunity of at once testing both. The investigating and observing Prince had marked how he before had acted in a situation concealed from the eyes of the world, and this experience appears to have made him doubt, whether the talented man was not in his ambitious efforts on the road to become a cold ascetic, a heartless lawyer, and an egotistical diplomatist; whether the feigned show of virtue did not weigh with him more than his still untested virtue. The duke had learned that this Angelo was affianced to one Mariana, the sister of Frederic, a noble and famous naval hero. Before the appointed nuptials, the brother perished at sea with his vessel and with the dowry of his sister; and the bridegroom was cruel and hard-hearted enough to forsake her who could now advance him no further either with her property or kindred; nay he even pretended discoveries of her dishonour in order to give a colour to his proceedings. In this trait also, we at once recognize a proud aspiration after rank, property, and importance, and a proud display of a highly sensitive morality; the poet has wisely started with this, just as in Much Ado about Nothing he preluded Claudio's subsequent deception by an earlier one, order more definitely to mark out the character. The Duke in conferring upon Angelo the post of deputy, has before him the double aim of testing how he will be affected in this wider field of action, to what steps his severe morality will lead him, and what influence his new power will exercise upon his character. The Duke himself pleads a journey as a pretext, but disguised in a friar's habit he watches all events in the immediate neighbourhood. The

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