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

that heaven shall share with you, with prayers from preserved souls, from fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate to nothing temporal".

He confesses now, when we are alone with him, that he is on the way leading to temptation, "where prayers cross" his wishes. We find him so again subsequently, when his own prayers and thoughts are at variance: heaven has his empty words, his imagination anchors on Isabella. Suddenly the suppressed feeling revenges itself on the unnatural restraint, and all that has made the man hitherto ambitious and proud, his studies are grown "feared and tedious" to him, and his virtuous gravity he could change for "an idle plume". He who was never in the least exposed to the temptation of light women's art or nature, he yields to the dangerous temptation of modesty; the cunning enemy catches the saint with a saint, and goads him on to sin "in loving virtue". Isabella herself, after she has surveyed the whole course of Angelo's error, and had had to suffer from it, bears witness to him, that she must believe a due sincerity governed his deeds, till he met with her. And that this whole appearance, so much mind, beauty, and virtue, in wonderful combination, should seize the fancy of the man, should suddenly overpower all his senses, and compel him to the acknowledgment, that his blood is like the blood of other that she at once should overthrow his statesmanlike composure, his judicial gravity, his ascetic placidity, who would not understand this? But why is not his first thought on an honourable and lawful love? Why do his thoughts tarry at once upon the picture to him so full of reproach, while he asks himself:

men,

11.

3

"Having waste ground enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there"?

If he regards her, as was possible from his knowledge of her, as an already dedicated nun, his designs were all the more criminal. But even without this, his connection with Mariana was naturally in his constant remembrance, he had to fear her protest against every marriage; he avoids the public announcement of this secret history, and loses himself more and more in the intoxication of his passion, which seduces him to take such an advantage of power and opportunity, as allowed him to maintain the appearance of blamelessness except in the eyes of one, whose estimation ought indeed to have out-balanced that of all the rest of the world. His earlier heartless behaviour towards Mariana is thus the source of a second greater outrage; the nature, at work in the one, influences this new connection also. When Isabella visits him again at the appointed hour, he resigns himself like a fatalist to the impression, which he is to receive from her: he is divided in his mind as to his suit, just as she had been with hers, when she first came to him. Once more she is quickly retiring, satisfied with his refusal. He holds her back. He would fain even now avoid the temptation, but Isabella is dangerous for him; she is clever, he can speak to her without the blunt distinctness, which would even now make him blush. Unhappily she half meets him with a sentence, which he could so misunderstand, as if she regarded a crime like that of her brother's as not so blameable. Upon his first insidious question she quickly understands him, but she is under the conviction, that he intends only to test her. She evades