friar-duke's remonstrance that "virtue is bold and goodness never fearful", she hesitates not to take upon herself the appearance of crime for the sake of a truly virtuous object, and agrees to his adventurous plan which by a pious fraud is to procure safety to her brother, and to restore her faithless lover to the rejected Mariana. Sympathy with her brother leads her not to disregard the sin, but only the appearance of sin; feeling and womanliness are developed in the very action, which seems to demand a masculine renunciation of womanly delicacy. A perfectly similar instance is once again to be remarked in her subsequently, when she is petitioned by Mariana to implore for the life of Angelo, whom she yet regards as the murderer of her brother. It may seem to require the strength of a masculine asceticism, when she even now calms herself upon her brother's death, that he "had but justice"; but certainly it demanded the utmost womanly gentleness and pity and the absence of every feeling of spite and revenge, when in the same breath she petitions for Angelo's life. The mixture of commiseration and strength of character, of personal purity and forbearance for the weakness of others, of tenderness and firmness, of womanly timidity, aye, even of mistrust of herself and the surest decision of action, of modesty and ability, of humility and a display of power mental and moral, penetrates the whole character of this woman. She stands in the midst of the universal depravity, elevated in stainless purity of soul far above all the basenesses of crime, a being whose thoughts already were wafted above the earth, and from whose feelings the emotions of all common passion were removed.

However much such a being, from the almost super

natural greatness of her virtue, may forfeit our sympathy, yet, if we are to understand poetry a little symbolically, it entered excellently and perfectly into the poet's plan, to present just such an angel as the tempter of Angelo's virtue. Both characters and the results of their meeting are only to be explained by the most attentive weighing of each word in their intercourse together. Isabella, accompanied by Lucio, appears before the deputy, and the natural disinclination of her chaste soul to plead for a vice which she most abhors, is still struggling within her with commiseration for her brother; her petition takes, therefore, the significant turn, that she enjoins condemnation of the sin and pardon for the sinner. She is in strife between wishing and not wishing, she is, therefore, not in the humour for persuasion; in this frame of mind she cannot will to "play with reason and discourse"; she acknowledges, therefore, the justice of the indeed severe law at the first official and laconic refusal, she gives up the life of her brother and retires. Even this trait, this strange manner of urging a suit, must strike the sober and serious judge and inspire him with esteem. Upon Lucio's reproachful censure of her coldness, she resumes once more the interrupted petition. Acknowledging the justice of the law, she sees nothing which can stand in the way of mercy. She maintains this with sense, she puts it to his heart with feeling; maidenly timidity is laid aside; with the emotions of pity she recovers at once her natural eloquence, and displays more and more her noble heart. At the first sound of this touching tone struck from the soul of the great and severe woman, Angelo feels himself moved, and as if in foreboding of the power which this being might

obtain over him, he prays her to begone. She seizes him. more strongly; she reminds him of the eternal justice, which had found mercy and atonement for the whole forfeit race of man. He wishes not to appear in her sight as a barbarian and in more words than are his wont, he condescends to explain to her the human side of pity in his severe administration of justice. He concludes with a renewed refusal, and with the request that she should be content. The general grounds on which she had striven to shake his official conscientiousness and feeling are now exhausted; her natural aptness makes her now change the mode of attack: she speaks to him personally; and as his last words had shown him as a man of sensible intellectual nature, she involuntarily calls to her aid the last weapons of her mind. "So" she says,

"You must be the first, that gives this sentence;

And he that suffers: O! it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant"!

From this last tone she passes even to sarcastic bitterness in her image of the puny great ones of the earth, who if they could thunder as Jove does, would consume their shortlived existence in nothing but thundering; in comparing the little brief authority of man with God, she can at the same time indirectly remind him of his fleeting appointment, which should oblige him all the more in the exercise of his power to bear in mind his "glassy essence". But how completely does the deeply thoughtful conclusion of this attack break the point of all that might be offensive and irritating in it! "Proud man", she says,

"like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,

As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal”.

How beautifully does this characterize this half-sainted being, that she believes angels are weeping over our human arrogance, that when she invests them in idea with our human satirical nature, she sees as the result, that they would laugh themselves mortal, because this disposition has, in her eyes, no part in heaven. Isabella gives time to the silent and surprised Angelo to reflect upon the profoundness of her words and the deep traits of her character, while she now is in the mood to give free course to her eloquence. She surprises and engages him with ever new striking attacks upon his innermost feelings. The mere glance upon this man has betrayed his nature to her instinctive knowledge of the human heart; she must in a moment have perceived that which the Duke and Claudio and Lucio have from long observation believed of him, that he is deeply impressed with his powerful position and his unblemished virtue. She has, therefore, first reminded him of the right use of his power, and she reminds him now of that of his virtue; she flatters at the same time (without willing it, since she, according to her subsequent expression, fully believes in his virtue) the best part in him, and by this gives additional force to that which her bitterness upon the arrogance of the great among men might have marred. She puts it to his heart, that we ought not to weigh our brother with ourselves, that he ought not to weigh hers with himself. She only hints upon this strength of his virtue; but that she may not have even the appearance of flattery, she returns to the idea of outward power and greatness:

"Authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o' the top".

She means that necessity for the maintenance of outward dignity, which is imposed upon the mighty, compels him the more to govern his faults and sinful inclinations, and when these cannot be repressed, to cover them over with the varnish of a fair show; she reminds him thus, that if he however deep within his own heart perceives the disposition to such a "natural guiltiness", and acknowledges something human and natural in that weakness, he must then "sound no thought" against her brother's life. She touches him thus on the side of his pride of virtue, and at the same time of that hypocrisy and pretence of sanctity, which lay deep in the secrets of his bosom; what wonder then, that all the hitherto quiet feelings of his soul burst forth at last in the expression of deep astonishment: "She speaks, and 'tis such sense, that my sense breeds with it". He receives the pregnant riddles which she utters, in an understanding and ready spirit, since every word is drawn from the innermost system of his own principles, his thoughts, and his whole nature. Yet till now he is ever master of himself; once more he bids her farewell. Then, in one simple repeated request, the fatal word escapes him: "come again to-morrow"! the path of temptation is entered with these few syllables. The proud man yet once more has the opportunity for a happy retreat! "Hark", she says, "how I'll bribe you"! "How! bribe me?" he asks. And Lucio fears at once that this one word would mar her suit. But she gives the matter a new turn, which must again fascinate the wavering man: "Ay", she replies, "with such gifts