her the exact diction that a young, fresh, unhackneyed, yet instinctively true-seeing girl would use on such an occasion. As the troop pass by, Helena asks: "Which is the Frenchman?” and Diana replies :

He;

That with the plume: 'tis a most gallant fellow.

I would he lov'd his wife: if he were honester

He were much goodlier: is't not a handsome gentleman ?

Adding, a moment after, ""Tis pity he is not honest ;" and when put upon her guard against him by her experienced friendly neighbour, Mariana, she quietly answers: "You shall not need to fear me."

This she proves to be completely the case by her mode of receiving Bertram's advances, when he actually makes them. She meets his specious arguments and defends herself against his illicit suit with a good sense and firmness which are perfectly womanly, while they are full of the best kind of spirit and courage.

To Bertram's impetuous exclamation, "How have I sworn ?" she quietly replies:

'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth;
But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true.

What is not holy, that we swear not by,

But take the Highest to witness. Then pray you, tell me,

If I should swear by Jove's great attributes

I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths

When I did love you ill? This has no holding,

To swear by him whom I protest to love,

That I will work against him: therefore your oaths
Are words and poor conditions; but unseal'd,—

At least, in my opinion.

Diana has a sedate philosophy of chaste self-respect perfectly worthy of her pure name, and perfectly competent to guard her from the depraved solicitations of such a self-seeker as the ignoble Count Bertram of Rousillon.

It was in the clear perception of poetic beauty in redeeming foul things by dwelling upon fair ones, and poetic harmony in contrast of inevitable evil with assured good and innocence, that Shakespeare made Isabella, the heroine of his play of "Measure for Measure," a self-consecrated votaress. A nun, a recluse, dedicated to a life of celibacy, austerity, and holy contemplation, is peculiarly well brought in against the worldly turmoil and soil of most of the other agents in the story. The tumult of the passions, the filth of the stews, demanded some ultra peace and purity as their relief; and in the whiteness and sanctity of the virgin novice we have this perfect restpoint. Very skilfully, too, is her spotlessness made the most powerful

allurement with the immaculately-reputed Angelo; while it aids in heightening the effect of her horror at his unhallowed suit. But though so clear herself from worldly taint, she is not ignorant that pollution exists; and her own freedom from vice and temptation leaves her the more able to know and regret the vice and temptation existing in that exterior world from which her vocation holds her apart. She deplores her brother's sin, yet pleads in its extenuation, and seeks to save him from its penalty. Her creed teaches her faith in intercession, and she consents to intercede for him; however she may shrink from the difficult and even repugnant task of leaving her convent to make personal appeal for his life. The extreme of artistic ingenuity with which the dramatist has depicted this natural repugnance on the part of Isabella has subjected her to the strange imputation of "coldness" from those who have not sufficiently studied her character as drawn by Shakespeare; but if the circumstances in which she is called upon to act be duly considered, it will be perceived that her reluctance to plead is merely the effect of these, and nowise the effect of her own nature. That is warm, fervent, even enthusiastic. It is her enthusiasm of nature that has led her to devote herself to a vestal life, it is her warmth of fervour that has led her to choose self-consecration to a religious vocation; as it is her enthu siastic desire for her brother's redemption and her fervour of attachment to him which prompt her to issue from her chosen seclusion and endeavour to obtain his remission from punishment by death. If it be noted with what art the two scenes are managed where Isabella implores Angelo to spare her brother's life, while she avows her brother's fault-to pardon the sinner while denouncing the sin,-to make allowance for youth and passion while reprobating the errors into which youth and passion hurry men,--it will be discerned that Shakespeare has wonderfully preserved the glowing nature of the woman through all the serenity of the nun and the modesty of the maiden. First, conceive the difficulty-nay, almost impossibility— of a young girl in her very novitiate having to throw herself at the feet of a strange judge, and supplicate his pardon for a culprit who has committed an offence that she can scarcely find words to name -and we shall discover the miraculous delicacy as well as power with which Isabella's speech and conduct throughout those two scenes is maintained. The shrinking timidity of her commencement; the hesitating words in which she endeavours to clothe the subject of her plea; the desire to make herself understood without need of giving full expression to her meaning; the innate abhorrence of the vice itself at the very moment of pleading for him who has VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

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been guilty of it; the diffident willingness to retire, at the first repulse; the return to entreaty; the gradual gathering of her courage to urge what arguments she can in favour of mercy towards offenders; the increasing force and personal application of her reasons why the judge should be lenient to the criminal, are all conceived with exquisite fidelity to natural appropriateness in the combined modesty and warmth of feeling characteristic of the speaker :—

Go to your bosom;

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That's like my brother's fault: if it confess

A natural guiltiness such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

This is during the first interview: in the second, where Isabella first discerns Angelo's design towards herself, with inimitable skill are traced her unwillingness to admit the idea, her evasion of it as long as possible, her slow admission of it when unable to misunderstand his drift, her brave remonstrance against his more plainly uttered meaning, her indignant defiance and threat to proclaim him to the world, and her final steady repulse of his infamous proposals. She has supreme indifference to death as an alternative for a "shamed life;" and the most philosophic calmness at the prospect of encountering the one rather than encounter the other. She strives to infuse into her weaker brother her own strength of resolution, and encourages him in his attempted readiness to die if it must be so, exclaiming:— There spake my brother: there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die:

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances.

At the same time showing how cheerfully she would die in his stead, were it possible thus to save him :

O! were it but my life,

I'd throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

Isabella is generously devoted to her erring brother in his desire to live and enjoy life, as she is lavishly devoted in her self-dedication to a spiritual and self-denying existence: ready, while he is safe and happy, to leave the world for a cloister; ready, when he is in danger, to leave life that she may save his. Hers is a thoroughly unselfish philosophy, a perfectly pure and disinterested love of what is right and good for its own sake. Like a truly virtuous and high-souled woman, she is scrupulously just and eminently tolerant.

She is so

just that she gives weight to every point that may honestly plead in extenuation of wrong-doing, and so tolerant that she can dispassionately make allowance for all. She is so just that she can admit there may be mitigating circumstances in guilt itself, and so tolerant that she can act forbearingly towards her worst injurer.

She has the fine wisdom and merciful perception to make strictly equitable distinction between intention and act in crime; and she can afford to be magnanimous even to Angelo himself. When Mariana entreats her to intercede for the lately-made husband, Isabella, ever nobly benign, kneels on his behalf to the Duke, with these words :

His act did not o'ertake his bad intent;

And must be buried but as an intent

That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;
Intents but merely thoughts.

Portia, of Belmont, has been arraigned of being even too well gifted with mental endowment; unfemininely intellectual; and has been absolutely stigmatised as a "Pedant!" I have heretofore striven to show the utter inappropriateness of this title; and, in Portia, so far from the "pedantry" of philosophy, we see the true grace and beauty of a happy philosophy, upon her return home, after her forensic triumph. Her moralising upon the candle-beam streaming from her hall is a most natural emotion; and as lovely and gentle, that the good deed she has just achieved should tempt her into the little egoism of a moral reflection. This very scene, which has brought upon her the sneer of being a pedant, is perhaps (from the reason just given) the most lovely, the most natural, the most womanly, and—as a climax-the most artistic point in her whole conduct; seeing that, from its pretty playful simplicity, it comes with felicitous relief to the staid technical routine she has gone through in the law-court. So far, in my mind, is Portia removed from pedantry-a more disagreeable defect in women than in men-as all vices and defects are so, by reason of the contrast to their general moral beauty-so far, I say, is she from a pedant, that I almost incline to think her the most perfect of Shakespeare's women, on account of the combination of moral and intellectual excellence which streams forth as we

contemplate her accomplishments. She is a perfect lady-in nobility of heart, as well as in refined good breeding and exalted station. She is easy in manner, courteous to all, polished in conversation and demeanour. Witty, and thoroughly unaffected; intelligent, and completely modest; gifted with high ability, yet capable of simplest enjoy. ment; competent to aid her men-friends by her discrimination, sagacity, and good sense, yet playful and sprightly as a child. She has the excellent qualification of knowing when to be sedate and grave, when to be sportive and playful. She is wisely serious when occasion calls for thought; and wisely cheerful when time admits of gaiety. She accepts with philosophical as well as filial decision the conditions of her father's will, which decrees that her future husband shall depend upon the choice of the three caskets, while she indulges her wit and good spirits with amused discussion of the possible issue.

Here is one of her "happy-philosophy" speeches. It is where she is sportively passing in review her several suitors' qualifications, when Nerissa asks her which of them she most favours, and among them mentions the County Palatine. At his name, Portia replies :

He doth nothing but frown; as who should say:-"An if you will not have me, choose." He hears merry tales, and smiles not. I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth.

But her greatest speech (and which Hazlitt infelicitously pronounced to be "very well!") is undoubtedly the celebrated one upon "Mercy;" and which it were heresy to pass unrepeated:

The quality of mercy is not strained :
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heav'n
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blessed,-
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes :
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal pow'r,
The attribute to awe and majesty ;

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:
But mercy is above this sceptr'd sway,—

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly pow'r doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice.

Spenser has a noble passage on that same theme, quite in his âne earnest way, affording an interesting contrast of style between our