* * * * *

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 purpose; the earlier part of the play thus preparing quietly for what is to follow, and the later explaining what went before.  In truth, the Duke is better able to understand the deputy’s character than to persuade others of it:  this is one of his motives for the stratagem.  And a man of his wisdom, even if he have no available facts in the case, might well suspect an austerity so theatrical as Angelo’s to be rather an art than a virtue:  he could not well be ignorant that, when men are so forward to air their graces and make their light shine, they can hardly be aiming at any glory but their own.

It is to be supposed, withal, that Angelo has been wont to set himself up as an example of ghostly rectitude, and to reflect somewhat on the laxity of the Duke’s administration.  These reproofs the Duke cannot answer without laying himself open to the retort of being touched with jealousy.  Then too Angelo is nervously apprehensive of reproach; is ever on the watch, and “making broad his phylacteries,” lest malice should spy some holes in his conduct; for such is the meaning of “standing at a guard with envy”:  whereas “virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful” in that kind.  The Duke knows that such an ostentatious strictness, however it may take with the multitude, is among the proper symptoms of a bad conscience; that such high professions of righteousness are seldom used but as a mask to cover some secret delinquencies from the public eye.  Angelo had entered into a solemn