In some such passage, then, I should rather presume the unique conception of Measure for Measure to have been formed in the Poet’s mind.  I say unique, because this is his only instance of comedy where the wit seems to foam and sparkle up from a fountain of bitterness; where even the humour is made pungent with sarcasm; and where the poetry is marked with tragic austerity.  In none of his plays does he discover less of leaning upon pre-existing models, or a more manly negligence, perhaps sometimes carried to excess, of those lighter graces of manner which none but the greatest minds may safely despise.  His genius is here out in all its colossal individuality, and he seems to have meant it should be so; as if he felt quite sure of having now reached his mastership; so that henceforth, instead of leaning on those who had gone before, he was to be himself a leaning-place for those who should follow.

Accordingly the play abounds in fearless grapplings and strugglings of mind with matters too hard to consist with much facility and gracefulness of tongue.  The thought is strong, and in its strength careless of appearances, and seems rather wishing than fearing to have its roughnesses seen:  the style is rugged, irregular, abrupt, sometimes running into an almost forbidding sternness, but everywhere throbbing with life:  often a whole page of meaning is condensed and rammed into a clause or an image, so that the force thereof beats and reverberates through the entire scene:  with little of elaborate grace or finish, we have bold, deep strokes, where the want of finer softenings and shadings is more than made up by increased energy and expressiveness; the words going right to the spot, and leaving none of their work undone.  Thus the workmanship is in a very uncommon degree what I sometimes designate as steep, meaning thereby hard to get to the top of.  Hence it is perhaps, in part, that so many axioms and “brief sententious precepts” of moral and practical wisdom from this play have wrought themselves into the currency and familiarity of household words, and live for instruction or comfort in the memory of many who know nothing of their original source.  As a strong instance in point, take Isabella’s meaty apothegm,—­

                            “Man, proud man,
    Drest in a little brief authority,—­
    Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d,—­
    Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
    As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
    Would all themselves laugh mortal.”

Which means that, if the angels had our disposition to splenetic or satirical mirth, the sight 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.

* * * * *