What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who fins moft?
Not fhe-nor doth fhe tempt-but it is I,
That, lying by the violet in the fun,
Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous feafon. Can it be,
That modefty may more betray our fense,

Than woman's lightnefs? having wafie ground enough,
Shall we defire to raze the fanctuary,

And pitch our evils there? Oh, fie, fie, fie!
What doft thou? or what art thou, Angelo?
Doft thou defire her foully, for those things
That make her good? Oh, let her brother live-
Thieves for their robbery have authority,

When judges fteal themfelves. What? do I love her,
That I defire to hear her speak again,

And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on ?

Oh, cunning enemy, that to catch a faint,
With faints doft bait thy hook? most dangerous

Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To fin in loving virtue. Ne'er could the Strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art, and nature,
Once fir my temper; but this virtuous Maid
Subdues me quite. Ever 'till this very now,
When men were fond, I fmiled, and wondered how.

The Duke here, under the character of a friar, in confeffing Juliet, gives an admirable leffon on the nature of contrition, diftinguishing it very properly from attrition merely; and, at the fame time, expreffes a juft but fevere fentence againft a woman's failure in the point of chastity; their education, their manners, and the moral confequences of their frailty, throwing fo many more bars in their way, han the modes of the world have oppofed to the other fex.

Duke to Juliete

Repent you, fair one, of the fin you carry?

Juliet. I do; and bear the fhame most patiently.

Duke. I'll teach you how you fhall arraign your confcience,
And try your penitence if it be found,

Or hollowly put on.

leafe Juliet. I'll gladly learn.

fore 1

Duke. Love you the man that wronged you?

paren Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.

Duke.

Duke. So then, it feems, your most offenceful a&t
Was mutually committed.

Juliet. Mutually.

Duke. Then was your fin of heavier kind than his.
Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.
Duke. 'Tis meet fo, daughter-But repent you not,
As that the fin hath brought you to this shame?
Which forrow's always towards ourselves, not heaven
Shewing, we'd not feek Heaven, as we love it,
But as we ftand in fear.

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil.

Duke. There reft.

SCENE X.

The frailty of human nature is well defcribed in the wanderings of the mind in prayer, and the ftruggle between virtue and paffion, in the first-speech here; which concludes with obferving, how apt the pageantry or falfe feemings of power are to impofe on the world, even the great vulgar, as well as the Small.

Angelo folus.

When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To feveral fubjects: Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilft my intention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Ifabel. Heaven's in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew its name;

And in my heart the ftrong and fwelling evil
Of my conception. The ftate, whereon I ftudied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,

Grown feared and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume,

Which the air beats for vain. Oh place! oh form!
How often doft thou with thy cafe, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wifer fouls
To thy falfe feeming? Blood, thou art but blood.
Let's write good angel on the Devil's horn;

'Tis yet the Devil's creft.

SCENE XI.

There is a proper fentiment of Christian humility, expreffed by Isabella, in this place :

Let me be ignorant; and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.

• Doctor Johnfon's reading, instead of 'tis not.

And

And just after, there is a virtuous argument finely fupported by her, against the infidious pleadings of the Deputy; who, after refufing her a pardon for her brother, thus proceeds:

Angelo. Admit no other way to fave his life,
As I fubfcribe not that, nor any other,

But in the lost of question) that you, his fifter,
Finding yourself defired of fuch a perfon,
Whofe credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to fave him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this fuppofed, or elfe let him fuffer;
What would you do?

Ijabella. As much for my poor brother, as myfelf
That is, were I under the terms of death,

The impreffion of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And trip myself to death, as to a bed

That longing I've been fick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Angelo. Then muft your brother die.
Habella. And 'twere the cheaper way;

Better it were a brother died for once,
Than that a fifter, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever.

Angelo. Were not you, then, as cruel as the fentence
That you have flandered fo?

Ifabella. Ignominy in ranfom, and free pardon,
Are of two houfes; lawful mercy, fure,

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

ACT III. SCENE I

The Duke, remaining still under the disguise of a friar, comes to the prifon to prepare Claudio for death; upon which fubject he makes a number of moral and philofophic reflections; but these last moftly. of the Stoic kind, by obferving on the precarioufnefs and infignificancy of human life; the whole of which I fhall give here at full length.

Duke to Claudio.

Be abfolute for death ; or death, or life,

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life;

+ Doctor Johnson more roperly reads refs, for canvas, of the question.

If I do lofe thee, I do lofe a thing,

That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skiey influences,

That do this habitation where thou keep'ft,
Hourly afflict; merely thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'it by thy flight to fhun,

And yet runn'ft toward him full. Thou art not noble ;
For all the accommodations that thou beareft,

Are nurfed by bafeness; thou'rt by no means valiant ;
For thou doft fear the foft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of reft is fleep,
And that thou oft provok'; yet grofly fear'ft
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself;
For thou exift'ft on many a thousand grains,
That iffue out of duft. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, That thou striv't to get;
And what thou haft, forget't. Thou art not certain ;
For thy complexion fhifts to ftrange effects *,
After the moon. If thou'rt rich, thou'rt poor;
For. like an afs, whofe back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'it thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloadeth thee. Friend haft thou none;
For thy own bowels which do call thee Sire,
The mere effufion of thy proper loins,

Do curfe the gout, ferpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no fooner. Thou haft nor youth, nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner's fleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blafted youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the almas
Of paified eld; and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou haft nor heat, affection, limb, or beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,
'That bears the name of life? Yet in this life,

Lye hid more than a thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

And in the next fcene, lfabella, after hinting to her brother at certain base conditions, on which his fentence might be remitted, endeavours to ftrengthen his refolution to prefer death before difhonour, by.. fomewhat of the fame manner of reafoning, as above; but more conclufive and concife:

Oh, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Left thou a feverish life should't entertain,
And fix or seven winters more respect,
Than a perpetual honour. Dareft thou die?

Dr. Johnfon reads affects, and with good reafon.
The Doctor alfo reads blafted, instead of blessed.

J

The

The fenfe of death is moft in apprehenfion;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal fufferance finds a pang as great,
As when a giant dies.

To this fufpicion of his weakness he replies, with the spirit becoming a man of honour and vir

tue :

Claudio. Why give you me this shame
Think you, I can a refolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I muft die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in my arms.

But after having paid this compliment to heroism, Human Nature comes in for its fhare, in turn; and he then pleads for life, even on the most abject

terms:

Claudio, Oh, Isabel!

Ifabella. What says my brother ?

Claudio. Death's a fearful thing.

Ifabella. And shamed life a hateful.

Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obftruction, and to rot;

This fenfible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delinquent * fpirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to refide
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewlefs winds,
And blown with reftlefs violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling; 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment,
Can lay on Nature, is a paradife,

To what we fear of death.

What an ignoble fentiment is here expreffed, in the four laft lines of this fpeech! and yet the great Macenas had the fame, and declared it very nearly in the fame words! What a difgrace to letters! But hiftory defcribes him to have been a person of foppifh and effeminate manners; and 'tis but rarely that the outward character belies the inward one.

* Inftead of delighted. Johnlon.

Ifabella's