his conversation. The man whom Angelo represents is always spoken of as 'eminent for his clear common sense and practical views of life,' and would never talk as Polonius does about Hamlet and Ophelia to the King and Queen in the second Scene of the second Act of the tragedy.

That Angelo is punctilious, his first speech in the play, as he enters in obedience to the request of the Duke, plainly shows. He says,

"Always obedient to your grace's will,

I come to know your pleasure."

It needs the manner of a Chesterfield to give those lines their proper utterance,--to make them deferențial without servility, and formal without affectation. The Duke's reply shows how eminently respectable his deputy was considered by all Vienna; how he was looked to by the public, as a man whose character and conduct fitted him for dignified position, and how reputable were all his antecedents.

"Angelo,

There is a kind of character in thy life,
That, to th' observer, doth thy history
Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper, as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee," &c.

Claudio says of him, in the third Scene of this Act, that

he

"for a name

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me :-'tis surely for a name :"-

The Duke tells Friar Thomas that his deputy "stands at a guard with envy;" and he himself, in the solitude of his own chamber, confesses to himself that he takes pride in his own gravity; yet even in that secret place he shrinks from the confession, and says, "let no man hear me."

But Angelo is not all hypocrite at first. His gravity, his preciseness, and his respectability, are not mere shams. He is naturally sober, formal, and austere; and having never encountered exactly the sort of temptation which alone could betray him into impropriety, he has been exceedingly proper all his life. His selfish and hard-hearted repudiation of poor Mariana, which afterwards appears, would not impeach his respectability then more than it would now. Generosity is one thing; respectability quite another. They are not twins, nor is the latter born of the former. Observe that Angelo is naturally too grave to find any amusement in the conversation between the Clown, Froth, and Elbow, in the first Scene of the second Act. Elbow brings in, as he says, "two notorious benefactors." The humor of the blunder does not exist for Angelo, who, not to be turned from his literal preciseness, solemnly asks,

"Benefactors! Well, what benefactors are they? Are they not male

factors?"

He puts but a curt question or two, and, leaving the affair in the hands of Escalus, soon goes out, hoping that his colleague "will find cause to whip them all." There is no affectation about this: he really finds no pleasure in studying the characteristics of such scum; and thinks whipping the best use to which they can be put.

Here it may be pertinent to say, that I cannot agree with those who find in Elbow only a feeble imitation of Dogberry. He has nothing in common with the guardian of Messina, except his ignorance. The pompous self-sufficiency, the ineffable conceit, the affectation of manner which imposes upon Dogberry's subordinates, and actually gives him a moral power over them, are entirely wanting in Elbow. Although, like Dogberry, he was "the the poor Duke's officer," he would never have the calm self-confidence to

say, as Dogberry does, with half deprecating, half patronizing air, to a nobleman who told him that he was tedious, “Truly for my own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship." Elbow lacks the force and self-possession of Dogberry. Feeble-minded, modest, and well meaning, as well as ignorant, he is rather the type of "Goodman Verges" in his youth.

But, to return a moment to Angelo. The naturally formal and unbending character of his mind is shown in the manner of his answer, when the Provost (Act II. Sc. 2), seeking assurance for the act, asks if it be really his will that Claudio shall die on the morrow.

reply simply 'yes;' but,

"Did I not tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?

Why dost thou ask again?”

He does not

He cannot conceive of a scruple or doubt entertained by a subordinate, after he has received orders from his superior. Immediately afterward, giving directions about poor Juliet, then hourly looking for the birth of her child, he uses no term of pity, does not even call her by her name, but designates her by an epithet which is at once opprobrious, technical, and suited to lips " of wisest censure ;" and coldly adds, with a scrupulous regard for propriety, and an equally scrupulous disregard of the appeals of sympathy for such an improper person, no matter what her extremity,

"Let her have needful, but not lavish means."

This is before he has seen Isabella, and ere the cold surface of his soul has been ruffled by passion; for we learn afterward, from his own lips, that he has never yet been moved by woman's beauty:

"this virtuous maid

Subdues me quite. Ever till now

When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how."

And he has prided himself, too, on this insensibility to female charms; for when Isabella first comes before him, and the Provost is about to retire, Angelo calls to him-"Stay awhile." There is no need that his subordinate should remain; but Angelo wishes to show how unmoved he will be by the tears and the charms of this beautiful young woman. What Isabella says of him in the last scene, is more than half true:

"I partly think

A due sincerity govern'd his deeds

Till he did look on me,"

for when he leaves her, after their first interview, and she

What blindness and prejudice must it be which calls so truthful and carefully drawn a character "unindividualized." Had Shakespeare not left us Angelo, one strongly marked type would have been wanting in his panorama of mankind. The same may be said of one other character in the comedy; but that one will be considered elsewhere.

The poetry of this play should ever protect it against such judgments as that passed by Mr. Hunter. In no one of Shakespeare's works, not even in Hamlet itself, does that marvellous interfusion of imagination and philosophy, of brilliant fancy and sober thought, taking form in words used with a daring mastery which at once astonishes, delights, and satisfies, which is the grand and peculiar char

acteristic of Shakespeare's graver moods, and which we call, for want of any other term, Shakesperian, more command our wondering admiration. There is more of it in the great tragedies, for in those there was more occasion for it; but even there it exists only in greater quantity, not in higher perfection, and in no one of the other comedies is it found scattered with so profuse a hand. It seems ruthless to pluck such jewels from their setting; but to avert the prejudice which threatens to cast into the shadow of neglect one of the grandest works of the greatest Poet,-a prejudice largely due to the litteratrices of the last century, and worthy of the women and the period when Dorimants and Mirabels made love to Aramintas and Flippantas,—it may be pardonable. Are these passages among those which give "little pleasure?"

"Duke. Heaven doth with us, as we with torches d Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd,

But to fine issues: nor nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence,

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use."

Act I. Sc. 1.

"Claud. As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint: Our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin down their proper bane)

A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die."

"Isab. Could great men thunder

Act I. Sc. 3.

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet;

For every pelting, petty officer,

Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder.-
Merciful heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,