INTRODUCTION TO MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

THE

HE original source of the plot of Measure for Measure is an Italian novel-a short tale in the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, which had been converted into an English drama, with various additions, by George Whetstone, so early as 1578. Whetstone entitled his performance the History of Promos and Cassandra. It does not seem to have been brought upon the stage, and we may assume that it was not popular, for four years afterwards-in 1582-Whetstone threw it into the form of a narrative, and inserted it, with other tales, in a work which he called An Heptameron of Civil Discourses. It was the drama, however, which Shakespeare had seen, and in the following 'Argument' prefixed to it, we have unquestionably the germ of Measure for Measure:

'In the city of Julio (sometime under the dominion of Corvirus, king of Hungary and Bohemia), there was a law that what man soever committed adultery should lose his head, and the woman offender should wear some disguised apparel during her life, to make her infamously noted. This severe law, by the favour of some merciful magistrate, became little regarded until the time of Lord Promos's authority, who, convicting a young gentleman named Andrugio of incontinency, condemned both him and his minion to the execution of this statute. Andrugio had a very virtuous and beautiful gentlewoman to his sister, named Cassandra: Cassandra, to enlarge her brother's life, submitted an humble petition to the Lord Promos. Promos, regarding her good behaviours, and fantasying her great beauty, was much delighted with the sweet order of her talk, and doing good that evil might come thereof, for a time he reprieved her

brother; but, wicked man! turning his liking unto unlawful lust, he set down the spoil of her honour ransom for her brother's life. Chaste Cassandra, abhorring both him and his suit, by no persuasion would yield to his ransom; but, in fine, won with the importunity of her brother (pleading for life), upon these conditions she agreed to Promos; first, that he should pardon her brother, and then marry her. Promos, as fearless in promise as careless in performance, with solemn vow signed her conditions; but, worse than any infidel, his will satisfied, he performed neither the one nor the other; for to keep his authority unspotted with favour, and to prevent Cassandra's clamours, he commanded the jailer secretly to present Cassandra with her brother's head. The jailer, with the outcries of Andrugio, abhorring Promos's lewdness, by the providence of God provided thus for his safety. He presented Cassandra with a felon's head newly executed (who being mangled, knew it not from her brother's), and was so aggrieved at this treachery, that, at the point to kill herself, she spared that stroke to be avenged of Promos; and devising a way, she concluded to make her fortunes known unto the king. She, executing this resolution, was so highly favoured of the king, that forthwith he hasted to do justice on Promos; whose judgment was, to marry Cassandra, to repair her crazed honour; which done, for his heinous offence he should lose his head. This marriage solemnised, Cassandra, tied in the greatest bonds of affection to her husband, became an earnest suitor for his life. The king, tendering the general benefit of the common weal before her special case—although he favoured her much would not grant her suit. Andrugio, disguised among the company, sorrowing the grief of his sister, bewrayed his safety and craved pardon. The king, to renown the virtues of Cassandra, pardoned both him and Promos.'

Whetstone has here departed widely from his Italian original. With Cinthio, the crime is one of violation, committed by a youth named Lodovico. The friends of the outraged lady appeal to Juriste, governor of Inspruck, who sentences the offender to death. Then the sister of Lodovico (called Epitia) appeals to

the governor, and obtains a remission of the sentence on the condition mentioned above-the sacrifice of her honour under a promise of marriage. But the infamous Juriste enforced the order for Lodovico's execution, upon which Epitia carries the story of her wrongs to Maximin, emperor of the Romans. Juriste is condemned to marry Epitia, and afterwards lose his life; but the forgiving lady intercedes for him, and a pardon is obtained. Thus Whetstone had not only changed the scene of the event and the names of the actors, but had softened some of the revolting features of the story. The alteration in the nature of the primary offence, and the production of the head of a felon, instead of that of the offender condemned but saved, were judicious and happy deviations from the original. Shakespeare adopted the latter-he probably never saw the novel of Cinthioand by adding the character of Mariana, saved also the purity of Isabella. Occasionally, the influence of the old play may be traced in the sentiments of Isabella, but, as Skottowe has observed, 'her pathetic earnestness, powerful argument, and impassioned eloquence, throw Whetstone's heroine to an immeasurable depth of inferiority. The legal officers, the clown and constable, and the wretched Mrs Overdone, have their prototypes in Whetstone's play; but all that is good in Measure for Measure is, as Hallam has remarked, Shakespeare's own. Isabella is the redeeming angel of the play. She is surrounded by an atmosphere of vice-by licentiousness, hypocrisy, heartlessness, and cruelty-associations that would utterly repel the reader were it not for the interest excited by the heroine, and by the masterly philosophical analysis of character and motives presented by the poet. In this drama, Shakespeare seems to revel in speculation, reflection, and comparison. The scenes which depict the interviews of Isabella with her brother, and her pleadings with Angelo and the Duke, are unsurpassed in any of the poet's great dramas either for poetical beauty and vigour, or for insight into the human heart. Dramatic effect is also well studied, notwithstanding that some of the incidents appear overstrained and incongruous. Coleridge said this play (which he recognised, as

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every reader must, to be 'Shakespeare's throughout') was to him the most painful-or rather the only painful-part of the poet's genuine works. The comic parts he conceived to be disgusting, the tragic parts horrible, and the pardon and marriage of Angelo appeared not merely to baffle the strong indignant claim of justice, but to be likewise 'degrading to the character of woman.' Justice certainly demanded that Angelo should be punished for his atrocious baseness and cruelty-not pardoned through the intercession of the very beings whom he had plotted to destroyby Isabella, whose brother he was believed to have put to death, and by Mariana, whom he had so deeply injured. There is an air of wild licence and profligacy spread over the whole, as if the bonds of society had been relaxed and moral distinctions broken down by the bad government of the state and the prevailing open licentiousness. When Isabella consents to the scheme respecting the substitution of Miranda, and describes the whole in the 'public place' before the Duke and others, we feel as if even her saintly purity and intellectual nobleness of character had received a taint. There is a palpable inconsistency also in the philosophical Duke continuing Angelo in his office of supreme power after he had become acquainted with his villany, and could at once have put an end to his machinations. How much misery and heart-corroding anxiety might he not have prevented! The drama, we suspect, was hurriedly written-poured forth in eager haste from a full mind and teeming imagination. The grand situations and contrasts-the philosophical dogmas-the impassioned speeches-the broad Alsatian scenes-seem all to have been struck off in the glow of rapid composition, without effort at lucidity of expression, at delicacy, or nice management of details. The play has also undoubtedly suffered greatly from the carelessness of transcribers or printers. There are many harsh inharmonious lines and passages hopelessly dark and perplexed.

It appears from the Accounts of the Revels at Court, that this play was performed at Whitehall on the 26th of December 1604. King James I. had succeeded the previous year to the throne of

England, and Shakespeare is supposed, in two passages of the
drama, to have referred, in a manner complimentary or apologetic,
to the king's proclamations forbidding the resort of the populace
too near his person:
'I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause, and aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it.'-Act I., Sc. 1.

'And even so

The general [the people], subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.'-Act II., Sc. 4.

Whether the poet really glanced, courtier-like, at the case of King James in these remarkable lines, is doubtful; they suit well the characters of the Duke and Angelo, by whom they are delivered. But there can be no doubt that the passages would be cordially applauded by James at Whitehall, as coinciding with his views of 'kingcraft' and royal dignity.

'Measure for Measure, commonly referred to the end of 1603, is perhaps, after Hamlet, Lear, and Macbeth, the play in which Shakespeare struggles, as it were, most with the overmastering power of his own mind; the depths and intricacies of being, which he has searched and sounded with intense reflection, perplex and harass him; his personages arrest their course of action to pour forth, in language the most remote from common use, thoughts which few could grasp in the clearest expression; and thus he loses something of dramatic excellence in that of his contemplative philosophy. The Duke is designed as the representative of this philosophical character. He is stern and melancholy by temperament, averse to the exterior shows of power, and secretly conscious of some unfitness for its practical duties. The virtue