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"As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

But in the loss of question."-Act II., Scene 4.

Loss of the argument, point, or object at issue. The connexion of the preceding line is indefinite and confused.

"That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny."-Act II., Scene 4.

Your accusation will appear so gross, that it will stifle yourself, and be considered a mere calumny. Shakspere has most egregiously suffered from the love of the literal, in his commentators. Steevens informs us that the above is "a metaphor from a lamp or candle extinguished in its own grease!" He would have done better, in this way, to have said that it was taken from a cannon stifled in its own report, by the smell of gunpowder. The word smell is, however, used here in a sense common with Shakspere, as though he had said smacks of calumny; but according to this literal mode of perversion, we should have to understand calumny in the sense of so many boxes on the ears!

"Merely, thou art death's fool, For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'st toward him still."

Act III., Scene 1. This allegorical imagery is not used in an abstract sense only, for such things were actually represented on the stage in Shakspere's time. In some of the pieces called "MoRALITIES," or "MYSTERIES," a figure of Death, with a large mouth, would appear, and the clown, or Fool of the piece, ran about in every direction to avoid him, and yet nearly fell into his jaws at almost every turn. In Stowe's "SURVEY," the initial letter contains a drawing (probably copied from the life) of one of these struggles between Death and the Fool.

"Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st

Thy death, which is no more."-Act III., Scene 1. Thou oft provokest, i. e., by courting it, or inducing it by narcotics. Dr. Warburton quotes a passage from Cicero, to prove that Shakspere borrowed the comparison of death with sleep. A dozen such passages might be found in the Greek and Latin authors, which might stand as equally likely originators of this comparison. But something worse than alleged plagiarism has been discovered in the whole of this fine speech. "Here," says Dr. Johnson, "Dr. Warburton might have found a sentiment worthy of his animadversion. I cannot, without indignation find Shakspere saying that 'death is only sleep;' lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence, which, in the friar, is impious; in the reasoner, is foolish; and in the poet, trite and vulgar." The reader will here perceive Dr. Johnson's extreme ignorance of one of the first principles of the dramatic faculty, in thus making the dramatist personally responsible for arguments used by one of his characters for an especial purpose. How would Shakspere look if certain sayings of Iago were produced as the poet's code of moral action? We should then have to balance them with those of an opposite tendency in his works, and the task would be equally ridiculous and inconclusive.

"A restraint,

Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determined scope."-Act III., Scene 1. Though you were the possessor of the vast world, the terms proposed will fetter you to a fixed limit.

"Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear." Act III., Scene 1. Would strip you of your honour, as the bark is stripped from the tree.

"Yes, he would give it thee for this rank offence,

So to offend him still.”—Act III., Scene 1.

He would give thee thy freedom, as the consequence of this offence, and thus continue to offend his own consistency. This is not a very satisfactory explanation, but the best we can give of the probable meaning.

"Has he affections in him,

That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,
When he would force it?"-Act III., Scene 1.

Claudio is speaking of his approaching death, being condemned by Angelo enforcing an anomalous or obsolete law. The figure by which he expresses this, is a striking instance of Shakspere's love of the ridiculous, which often breaks out on the most serious and inappropriate occasions.

"To lie in cold obstruction."-Act III., Scene 1. Literally, to lie in the cold obstruction of the surrounding earth-the weight of the grave, pressing on all sides. The spiritual meaning of the expression hardly admits of verbal explanation.

"What sin you do to save a brother's life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.”—Act III., Scene 1. "One of the most dramatic passages in the present play," says Hazlitt, in his "CHARACTERS OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS," "is the interview between Claudio and his sister, when she comes to inform him of the conditions on which Angelo will spare his life. What adds to the dramatic beauty of the scene, and the effect of Claudio's passionate attachment to life, is that it immediately follows the Duke's lecture to him, in the character of the Friar, recommending an absolute indifference to it." The attempt of Claudio to prove to his sister that the loss of her chastity, upon such an occasion, will be a virtue, is finely characteristic of the profound knowledge Shakspere possessed of the intricate complexities of the human heart. "Shakspere was, in one sense, the least moral of all writers," says Hazlitt; "for morality (commonly so called) is made up of antipathies; and his talent consisted in sympathy with human nature, in all its shapes, degrees, depressions, and elevations. The object of the pedantic moralist is to find out the bad in everything: his was to shew that there is some soul of goodness in things evil.'' With reference to the representation of such scenes on the stage, Schlegel makes the following manly and philosophical observations (LeCTURES ON DRAMATIC ART AND LITERATURE, Vol. II., Sect.12):-"It is certainly to be wished that decency should be observed on all public occasions, and consequently also on the stage; but even in this, it is possible to go too far. That censorious spirit, which scents out impurity in every sally of a bold and vivacious description, is at best but an ambiguous criterion of purity of morals; and there is frequently concealed under this hypocrisy the consciousness of an impure imagination. The determination to tolerate nothing which has the least reference to the sensual relation between the two sexes, may be carried to a pitch extremely oppressive to a dramatic poet, and injurious to the boldness and freedom of his composition. If considerations of such a nature were to be attended to, many of the happiest parts of the plays of Shakspere, for example, in MEASURE FOR MEASURE,' and ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL,' which are handled with a due regard to decency, must be set aside for their impropriety."

"For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne'er issued from his blood."-Act III., Scene 1. Such a crooked slip or twig from a wild and pathless waste ne'er issued from my father's blood.

"And the corrupt deputy scaled."-Act III., Scene 1. Weighed in the scales of justice; or perhaps it may mean that the scales covering his hypocrisy will be torn off.

"The moated grange."-Act III., Scene 1.

A lonely house or farm, with a moat round it. A grange formerly meant the farm-house belonging to a monastery, and situated at some distance. On this suggestion of the utter desolation of the life of Mariana, whose loving and deserted heart was left to prey upon itself, and to torment her imagination with one constant, unchangeable, and unavailing idea, a beautiful poem has been founded by Tennyson, from which we give the following stanzas:

"Upon the middle of the night,

Waking, she heard the night-fowl crow;
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,

In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the grey-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, 'The day is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

"All day within the dreamy house,

The door upon the hinges creaked, The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about.

Old faces glimmered through the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'"

"We shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard." Act III., Scene 2. "Bastard" was a sweet wine. It generally meant raisin wine. Of course there is a double meaning in the use of the word here.

"'T was never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down; and the worser allowed, by order of law, a furred gown to keep him warm; and furred with fox and lambskins too," &c.-Act III., Scene 2.

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Dr. Johnson explains the "two usuries" by observing that usury may be used by an easy licence for the professors of usury." The expression appears to mean more than this; and to suggest the extortion of a large interest upon capital in other matters not exactly connected with the monetary professors. These latter are "the worser," who wear fox and lamb-skin facings, which were much worn in Shakspere's time. The two usuries, however, seem to interpenetrate each other, or to have some peculiar jest in common.

"His neck will come to your waist; a cord, Sir." Act III., Scene 2. Alluding to the cord round a friar's waist.

"He puts transgression to't."-Act III., Scene 2.

He puts transgression to its wit's end, or to the last shift, by the exercise of his new authority.

"A ducat in her clack-dish."-Act III., Scene 2. A wooden dish, with a cover which beggars were accustomed to clack up and down, by way of reminding the passengers of their charity.

"The greater file of the subject," &c.-Act III., Scene 2. The larger number,-the majority of the people.

"The business he hath helmed."-Act III., Scene 2. The business, or vessel of the state, of which he hath taken the helm.

"This would make mercy swear."-Act III., Scene 2.

"MEASURE FOR MEASURE" has had the equivocal good fortune of exhibiting, to a more than usual extent, the learned energies of equally astonished and astonishing commentators. Farmer says, "I do not much like 'mercy swear,' the old reading; or mercy swerve,' Dr. Warburton's correction. I believe it should be, this would make mercy severe.' It hence appears, that when these gentlemen came to a word or expression in Shakspere, which they did not understand, or did not much like, they deliberately altered it with great self-congratulation, to adapt it to their own sense. Steevens objects to these corrections of " the old reading," and he does so, not because the system is presumptuous, destructive to originality, and therefore vicious at all times,--but because, with reference to the passage in question, as to the propriety of " mercy" being so outraged as to "swear," he suddenly recollects that we sometimes say of a thing, “It is enough to make a parson swear."

"Come Philip and Jacob."-Act III., Scene 2.

A quaint allusion to the saints' days, Philip and James, or Jacobus.

"There is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it."-Act III., Scene 2.

Virtue has become so extreme and outrageous, that it must have a speedy end.

"There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accursed: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world."

Act III., Scene 2.

There is scarcely enough truth in mankind to enable society to hold together, and yet there is enough reliance and unsuspicious confidence to render friendships ruinous.

"By the instruction of his frailty."-Act III., Scene 2. At the instigations of his frail humanity.

"Making practice on the times."-Act III., Scene 2.

For "making practice," we should probably read, "mocking, practice."-How may false appearances, or crime mimicking the likeness of virtue, deceive the world.

"Take, oh take those lips away."-Act IV., Scene 1.

This is only the first verse of a song attributed to Shakspere, and no doubt written by him, which was among his poems, printed in 1640. Some of these poems are considered of doubtful authority, and the whole of this beautiful song appears also in Beaumont's tragedy of "THE BLOODY BROTHER." The second verse is as follows:"Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are of those that April wears. But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee."

"With whispering and most guilty diligence,
In action all of precept, he did shew me," &c.
Act IV., Scene 1.

So that, had they been seen, it would have appeared to the spectators, by the action and gesticulation of Angelo, that he was giving her sage precepts and moral instruction.

"Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow." Act IV., Scene 1. "For yet our tithe's to sow," renders the meaning of the line obscure, from its want of connexion. Even the change of the word lithe into tilth, or tillage, as proposed by various commentators, does not help us in the least out of the difficulty. Is it a joke, to the effect that we must hasten to reap our corn, that we may sow the tithes?

"Were he mealed

With that which he corrects."-Act IV., Scene 2. Were he fed, or filled, with that which he now denounces; or had he made his meal on this vice, which he now corrects.

"And you shall have your bosom on this wretch." Act IV., Scene 3. You shall have your revenge; you shall unload your bosom. "The old fantastical Duke of dark corners."

Act IV., Scene 3. Schlegel, the finest of Shakspere's critics (as Hazlitt was the finest commentator), has some admirable remarks, in his "LECTURES ON DRAMATIC ART AND LITERATURE," concerning the character of the Duke, and the masterly way in which Shakspere contrives incidentally to give a satirical cut at his peculiarities from the mouth of Lucio. The Duke loves justice and truth, but it is his "crotchet" to attain them by crooked ways, and by lurking in disguises. "The interest," says Schlegel, 66 reposes altogether on the action; curiosity constitutes no part of our delight, for the Duke, in the disguise of a monk, is always present to watch over his dangerous representatives, and to avert every evil which could possibly be apprehended. The Duke acts the part of the monk naturally, even to deception; he unites in his person the wisdom of the priest and the prince. His wisdom is merely fond of too roundabout ways; his vanity is flattered by acting invisibly, like an earthly providence; he is more entertained with overhearing his subjects than governing them in the ordinary manner. As he at last extends pardon to all the guilty, we do not see how his original purpose of restoring the strictness of the laws, by committing the execution of them to other hands, has in anywise been accomplished." Hazlitt thinks he was "more absorbed in his own plots and gravity than anxious for the welfare of the state; more tenacious of his own character than attentive to the feelings and apprehensions of others." All this seems true, and yet we feel that the Duke, however "fantastical," is an amiable man: he loves justice, but mercy still more.

"This deed unshapes me quite."-Act IV., Scene 4. This crime changes my natural shape, and deforms my authority.

"Do not banish reason

For inequality."-Act V., Scene 1.

Do not consider me insane, nor refuse to hear my cause, because of my inferior rank to my oppressor.

-"But let your reason serve

To make the truth appear where it seems hid; And hide the false seems true."-Act V., Scene 1. Make truth appear where it seems hid; and hide, or dismiss from your mind, the false which seems true. The exact meaning is not certain, the discrepancy being probably in

duced by the equivocal use of the words, "hid" and "hide." Mr. Malone goes a little out of the way to explain the passage. He says, "And for ever hide-that is, plunge into eternal darkness, the false one; that is, Angelo, who now seems honest." By what species of logic this prodigious reading of the simple word "hide" can be justified, is no more apparent than the preternatural power by which the Duke should have the means of plunging a man into "eternal darkness."

"Like doth quit like, and Measure' still 'for Measure."" Act V., Scene 1.

"The play," says Schlegel, "takes improperly its name from the punishment: the sense of the whole is properly the triumph of mercy over strict justice; no man being himself so secure from error as to be entitled to deal it out among his equals. The most beautiful ornament of this composition is the character of Isabella, who, in the intention of taking the veil, allows herself to be prevailed on by pious love again to tread the perplexing ways of the world; while the heavenly purity of her mind is not even stained with one unholy thought by the general corruption: in the humble robes of the novice of a nunnery, she is a true angel of light." The following subtle remarks are made by Hazlitt: -"This is a play as full of genius as it is of wisdom. But there is a general want of passion; the affections are at a stand; our sympathies are repulsed and defeated in all directions. The only passion which influences the story, is that of Angelo; and yet he seems to have a much greater passion for hypocrisy than for his mistress. Neither are we greatly enamoured of Isabella's rigid chastity, though she could not act otherwise than she did. We do not feel the same confidence in the virtue that is sublimely good' at another's expense, as if it had been put to some less disinterested trial." The same writer, after remarking on the equivocal character and situation in the drama of the Duke, Claudio, and the love of Mariana for Angelo, at whose conduct we revolt, adds, that "in this respect there may be said to be a general system of cross-purposes between the feelings of the different characters, and the sympathies of the reader or the audience." Coleridge says that this play is, to him, "the most painful-say rather, the only painful part of Shakspere's genuine works." The reasons he assigns, however, are rather poor and conventional.

"I partly think

A due sincerity governed his deeds,

Till he did look on me."-Act V., Scene 1.

This was not only true, but it is a beautiful trait in the character of Isabel that she should be so forgiving as to admit the fact; and, at the passionate intercession of Mariana, make it a plea for the sparing of Angelo's life. Dr. Johnson is shocked at this forgiving disposition in Isabel, and propounds the moral, " that women think ill of nothing that raises the credit of their beauty, and are ready, however virtuous, to pardon any act which they think incited by their own charms." He ventures this opinion, however, by saying, "I am afraid, our varlet poet intended to inculcate, that women," &c. What must the Doctor have thought of Shakspere, and what of himself? However Shakspere might sink and dwindle in his comparison, it was hardly fair, notwithstanding, to saddle the "varlet" with the intention of inculcating so illiberal a calumny. It is one of the most marked characteristics of Shakspere, that he never "inculcates" anything; he leaves people to find what they can.

R. H. H.

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