XX.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

FOR the store of golden axioms on moral and social wisdom that it contains, no one of Shakespeare's dramas stands more grandly conspicuous than that of "Measure for Measure." Moreover, it displays a wider range of character, morally contrasted, than almost any other. We have the brutal stupidity of Barnardine, the callous offspring of vicious ignorance, whom the prospect of a shameful death cannot rouse to sensibility; the cruel and practical indifference of Abhorson, the gaoler and hangman; the putrid infamy of the creatures haunting the suburban stews; the vile and cold-blooded hypocrisy of virtue in Angelo-the more heart-sickening from that hypocrisy, as palpable disease is preferable to the scrofulous treachery of roseate health, when the worm of death is at the core; and ascending from that "lowest deep" in morality to the benevolent-hearted Provost, the well-meaning and patriotic, but certainly weak Duke, up to the angelic purity of the sainted Isabella, the heroine of the piece, and foremark of the whole community, and to whom the foremark of comment is consequently due.

Isabella is a curious combination of staid self-possession and the most shrinking modesty. She has a fine and even

powerful mind, but it is in conjunction with a retiring nature, rendered even bashful by habit and education. She is very young. The poet has distinctly marked this in several portions of the play, and she has been brought up for a nun. Most people seem to consider Isabella as a full-grown woman, with a confirmed manner, and a confident, nay, a self-satisfied disposition. To me she is much the reverse of all this. I find her to be, upon close and careful examination of the character, as Shakespeare has drawn it, a girl of naturally fine understanding and admirable judgment, together with an unvain and most unselfish spirit. She is hardly aware of her own mental powers, for there has been hitherto little opportunity for their exercise. Her answers to Lucio, her brother's friend, when he comes to beg her intercession with Claudio's stern judge, are indicative of self-doubt and distrust of her own qualifications for the office of pleader. "Alas! what poor ability's in ME to do him good?" And when Lucio urges her, with, "Assay the power you have," she falteringly replies, "My power! Alas! I doubt," as if but too fearful that she can do naught to meet this calamity. Her brother's first description of her fully bears out the view here taken of the character. He speaks of her modest, silent habit, together with her tender years, where he says

"In her youth

There is a prone and speechless dialect,
Such as moves men ;"

and her power of intellect is denoted in the words—

"She hath prosperous art

When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade."

Isabella has been called "cold." But with what generous impulse she speaks, when, hearing of her brother's offence with Juliet, she exclaims, "Oh, let him marry her!" with the

genuine trust of youth, believing that reparation is the best expiation. Note, also, the enthusiastic eagerness with which she is willing to augment austerities in her approaching convent life. She asks, "Have you nuns no farther privileges?" And upon sister Francesca's answer, "Are not these large enough?" Isabella replies

"Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more;

But rather wishing a more strict restraint

Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of St Clare."

This is precisely the lavish zeal with which a very young person enters upon vowed duties. Her prodigal regardlessness of life, too, is perfectly characteristic of youth. Of her own, of her brother's, of Mariana's, she is, each in turn, equally prodigal when misfortune threatens. Of her own she eagerly speaks :—

Is that the speech and act of a cold-blooded person? Of her brother's life she is no less profuse when staked against honour :

"Better it were a brother died at once,

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever;"

and she is thus profuse because she feels sure that he, too, would be so, knowing the alternative; for she says, rather than this

"Had he twenty heads to tender down

On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up."

And of Mariana's life she shows the same disregard when knowing that it is made miserable by Angelo's unkindness; for she exclaims, "What a merit were it in death to take this

poor maid from the world!" Such being precisely the way in which young ardent natures feel when first coming face to face with the stern griefs of life.

Isabella's warmth of indignation, when she finds her brother less indifferent to death, compared with dishonour, than she had believed, might redeem her from the charge of "coldness;" but even this has been turned against her, one critic going so far as ungenerously and unjustly, and unwarrantably as ungenerously, to sneer at a "virtue" that is (he says) "sublimely good at another's expense." Jenny Deans would, of course, be placed in the same category of this writer's contempt with Isabella. From all that we are shown of her character, Isabella's "virtue" is as noble and unselfish as it is unaffectedly sincere and pure. It has courage for all things but evil-doing in hope of advantage. She herself says, when urged by the Duke to undertake an attempt of a difficult nature-"Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit." is not the language of a cold-natured woman.

This

She has been accused of lukewarmness in her pleading to Angelo; but read the whole of those two fine scenes carefully, and I insure the congruence-that the skill of the dramatist is absolute and consummate mastery, in the way whereby he has contrived to preserve the womanly warmth with womanly delicacy throughout. In the first of these two scenes, Shakespeare has managed to exhibit the impression of lukewarmness that has been alluded to, as produced upon the bystanders, Lucio and the Provost; both of them being present on this occasion. The coarse man of the world, Lucio, not having an idea of the motive that restrains her and holds her in a measure tongue-tied, urges her, almost reproachfully, saying (aside to her)

"Give't not o'er so: to him again, entreat him ;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown:

You are too cold; if you should need a pin,

You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:
To him, I say."

Does not the tone and manner of this expostulation also convey the idea of its being addressed to a very young, and not to an adult woman? But the fact is, Lucio, in his dissolute callousness and vice-hardened perceptions, has not a glimmering of the real cause of Isabella's apparent coldness; and many who have judged the character, and pronounced it "cold," seem to have equally missed the true source of Isabella's imputed "tameness" here. I can only feel it to be thoroughly consistent with the most generous ardour of nature, such as she gives evidence of possessing beneath her exterior calm and self-retention, that this modest young girl, this maiden recluse, should find extreme difficulty in speaking at all upon the subject she has to treat of; and, upon studying the scene itself, it will be perceived that Isabella's hesitation only occurs when she has to touch upon the subject in question-her brother's fault. The virgin delicacy with which the poet has made her shrink from its absolute mention, and search for any form of words that shall convey the substance of her plea, without naming it, appears the very triumph of dramatic art, and perfectly serves to vindicate the character from the charge of unwomanly coldness, while exquisitely inferring its womanly modesty and reserve.

On all other points Isabella's conduct is warmth and earnestness to the uttermost. With what fervour and force of solemn argument she presses her appeal for mercy! When Angelo puts her off with

"Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

And you but waste your words,"

she rejoins

"Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ;