Angelo's proposal. As to the second branch, though I do
indeed feel that Claudio were rather to be pitied than blamed,
whatever course he had taken in so terrible an alternative, yet the
conduct of his sister strikes me as every way creditable to her. Her
reproaches were indeed too harsh, if they sprang from want of love;
but such is evidently not the case. The truth is, she is in a very
hard struggle between affection and principle: she needs, and she
hopes, to have the strain upon her womanly fortitude lightened by the
manly fortitude of her brother; and her harshness of reproof discovers
the natural workings of a tender and deep affection, in an agony of
disappointment at being urged, by one for whom she would die, to an
act which she shrinks from with noble horror, and justly considers
worse than death. So that we here have the keen anguish of conflicting
feelings venting itself in a severity which, though unmerited, serves
to disclose the more impressively her nobleness of character.

* * * * *

Again, the same critic, referring to the part of Mariana as
indispensable to "a satisfactory termination" of the story, objects,
that "it is never explained how the Duke had become acquainted with
this secret, and, being acquainted with it, how he had preserved his
esteem and confidence in Angelo." But, surely, we are given to
understand at the outset that the Duke has not preserved the esteem
and confidence in question. In his first scene with Friar Thomas,
among his reasons for the action he has on foot, he makes special
mention of this one:

"Lord Angelo is precise;
_Stands at a guard with envy_; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone: _hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our_ SEEMERS _be_."

Which clearly infers that his main purpose in assuming the disguise of
a monk is to unmask the deputy, and demonstrate to others what has
long been known to himself. And he throws out other hints of a belief
or suspicion that Angelo is angling for emolument or popularity, and
baiting his hook with great apparent strictness and sanctity of life;
thus putting on sheep's clothing, in order to play the wolf with more
safety and success. As to the secret concerning Mariana, it seems
enough that the Duke knows it, that the knowledge justifies his
distrust, and that when the time comes he uses it for a good