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Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed.

Juliet. Mutually.

Duke. Then was your fin of heavier kind than bis.
Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.
Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter-But repent you not,
As that the sin 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 stand in fear.

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

SCENE Χ.

The frailty of human nature is well described in the wanderings of the mind in prayer, and the struggle between virtue and passion, in the first speech here; which concludes with observing, how apt the pageantry or false seemings of power are to impofe on the world, even the great vulgar, as well as the fmall.

Angelo folus.

When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several fubjects: Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my intention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel. Heaven's in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew its name;
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied,
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 wiser fouls
To thy false seeming? Blood, thou art but blood.

Let's write good angel on the Devil's horn;

'Tis yet

* the Devil's creft.

SCENE ΧΙ.

There is a proper fentiment of Christian humility,

expressed by Isabella, in this place :

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

Doctor Johnson's reading, instead of 'sis not.

And

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

Angelo. Admit no other way to save his life,
(As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the lofs + of question) that you, his fifter,
Finding yourself defired of such a person,
Whose 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 save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else let him fuffer;
What would you do?

Jabella. As much for my poor brother, as myself-
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing I've been fick for, ere I'd yield

1.1

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My body up to shame.

Angelo. Then must your brother die.
Ijabella. And 'twere the cheaper way;
Better it were a brother died for once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.

1

Angelo. Were not you, then, as cruel as the fentence

That you have slandered so?

1

Isabella. Ignominy in ransom, and free pardon,..
Are of two houses; lawful mercy, fure,

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Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

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The Duke, remaining still under the disguise of a friar, comes to the prison to prepare Claudio for death, upon which subject he makes a number of moral and philosophic reflections; but these last mostly of the Stoic kind, by observing on the precarioufness and infignificancy of human life; the whole of which I shall give here at full length.

Duke 10 Claudio.

Be absolute for death; or death, or life,

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life;

+ Doctor Johnfon more properly reads refs, for canvas, of the question,

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:

If I do lose thee, I do lose 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'st,
Hourly afflict; merely thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'it by thy flight to shun,
And yet runn'it toward him ítill. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bearest,

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

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'it; yet grofly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains,
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, That thou striv'st to get;
And what thou haft, forget st. Thou art not certain ;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects *,
After the moon. If thou'rt rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an afs, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'it thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloadeth thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thy own bowels which do call thee Sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, ferpigo, and the rheum,

:

For ending thee no fooner. Thou hast nor youth, nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner's fleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blasted + youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of paified eld; and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou hast 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 scene, Isabella, after hinting to her brother at certain base conditions, on which his fentence might be remitted, endeavours to strengthen his resolution to prefer death before dishonour, by.. fomewhat of the same manner of reasoning, as above; but more conclusive and concife:

Oh, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Left thou a feverish life should'st entertain,
And fix or seven winters more respect,
Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?

• Dr. Johnfon reads affects, and with good reason.
† The Doctor alfo reads blafted, instead of bleffe1.

The

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The sense of death is most 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 resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I must 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 share, 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.

Isabella. And shamed life a hateful.

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

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delinquent * spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to refide
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless 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 sentiment is here expressed, in the four laft lines of this speech! and yet the great Mæcenas had the fame, and declared it very nearly in the fame words! What a disgrace to letters! But history describes him to have been a person of foppish and effeminate manners; and 'tis but rarely that the outward character belies the inward one.

• Instead of delighted. Johnfon.

Ifabella's

Isabella's indignation against her brother on this occafion, though it has no relation to the subjects we are upon, yet as it may have an effect in raising the same resentment against vice and meanness, in the minds of my readers, I think it worthy to be inferted here:

Isabella. Oh, you beaft!

Oh, faithless coward! Oh, dishonest wretch !
Wilt thou be made a man, out of my vice?
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life

From thine own filter's shame? What should I think?

Heaven grant my mother played my father fair!
For fuch a warped flip of wilderness

Ne'er issued from his blood-Take my defiance-
Die, perish! might my only bending down,
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.

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Oh, fie, fie, fie!

Thy fin's not accidental, but a trade;
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;

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'Twere best that thou diest quickly.

In the last speech of this scene, our Author gives

us a shocking, but too just description of Slander :
Duke. No might nor greatness, in Mortality,
Can cenfure scape-back-wounding Calumny
The whitest virtue ftrikes. What king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the slandering tongue ?

ACT IV. SCENE Ш.

In the laft paffage of this Scene, the Duke repeats the fame reflection, in still stronger terms:

O place and greatness! Millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings-thousand 'scapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dreams,
And rack thee in their fancies !

Such has been the complaint of all ages, even when the scandal was merely oral; but how much more intolerable has the offence become, of late years, when obloquy is not only privately spoken, but publicly printed, and openly circulated throughout these kingdoms? The Freedom of the Press should be ever held

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