of our human arrogance strutting through
its absurd antics would cast them into such an ecstasy of ridicule,
that they would laugh themselves clean out of their immortality; this
celestial prerogative being quite incompatible with such ebullitions
of spleen.

* * * * *

Whether from the nature of the subject, or the mode of treating it, or
both, _Measure for Measure_ is generally regarded as one of the least
attractive, though most instructive, of Shakespeare's plays.
Coleridge, in those fragments of his critical lectures which now form
our best text-book of English criticism, says, "This play, which is
Shakespeare's throughout, is to me the most painful--rather say the
only painful--part of his genuine works." From this language,
sustained as it is by other high authorities, I probably should not
dissent; but when, in his _Table Talk_, he says that "Isabella herself
contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio is detestable," I can by no
means go along with him.

It would seem indeed as if undue fault had sometimes been found, not
so much with the play itself as with some of the persons, from trying
them by a moral standard which cannot be fairly applied to them, or
from not duly weighing all the circumstances, feelings, and motives
under which they are represented as acting. Thus Ulrici speaks of
Claudio as being guilty of seduction. Which is surely wide of the
mark; it being clear enough that, according to the usages then and
there established, he was, as he considered himself to be, virtually
married, though not admissible to all the rights of the married life.
Hence we have the Duke assuring Mariana that there would be no crime
in her meeting with Angelo, because he was her "husband on a
pre-contract." And it is well known that in ancient times the ceremony
of betrothment conferred the marriage tie, though not the nuptials, so
that the union of the parties was thenceforth firm in the eye of the
law itself. So again Hallam, speaking of Isabella: "One is disposed
to ask whether, if Claudio had been really executed, the spectator
would not have gone away with no great affection for her; and at least
we now feel that her reproaches against her miserable brother, when he
clings to life like a frail and guilty being, are too harsh." As to
the first branch of this indictment, I might have ventured to ask the
writer how his affection would have stood towards the heroine, if she
had yielded to