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The Duke has been rather hardly dealt with by critics.  Shakespeare—­than whom it would not be easy to find a better judge of what belongs to wisdom and goodness—­seems to have meant him for a wise and good man:  yet he represents him as having rather more skill and pleasure in strategical arts and roundabout ways than is altogether in keeping with such a character.  Some of his alleged reasons for the action he goes about reflect no honour on him; but it is observable that the sequel does not approve them to have been his real ones:  his conduct, as the action proceeds, infers better motives than his speech offered at the beginning; which naturally suggests that there may have been more of purpose than of truth in his speaking.  His first dialogue with Angelo is, no doubt, partly ironical.  A liberal, thoughtful, and merciful prince, but with more of whim and caprice than exactly suits the dignity of his place, humanity speaks richly from his lips; yet in his actions the philosopher and the divine are better shown than the statesman and ruler.  Therewithal he seems to take a very questionable delight in moving about as an unseen providence, by secret counsels leading the wicked designs of others to safe and just results.  It is indeed true, as Heraud observes regarding him, that so “Divine Providence, while it deputes its authority to the office-bearers of the world, is still present both with them and it, and ever ready to punish the evil-doer”:  still I doubt of its being just the thing for the world’s office-bearers to undertake the functions of Providence in that particular.  Probably the Duke should not be charged with a fanaticism of intrigue; but he comes something nearer to it than befits a mind of the first order.  Schlegel thinks “he has more pleasure in overhearing his subjects than in governing them in the usual way of princes”; and sets him down as an exception to the proverb, “A cowl does not make a monk”:  and perhaps his princely virtues are somewhat obscured by the disguise which so completely transforms him into a monk.  Whether he acts upon the wicked principle with which that fraternity is so often reproached, or not, it is pretty certain that some of his means can be justified by nothing but the end.  But perhaps, in the vast complexity of human motives and affairs, a due exercise of fairness and candour will find cause enough for ascribing to him the merit of honestly pursuing the good and true according to the best lights he has.  Hereabouts Schlegel makes the following just remark:  “Shakespeare, amidst the rancour of religious parties, delights in painting monks, and always represents their influence as beneficial; there being in his plays none of the black and knavish specimens which an enthusiasm for Protestantism, rather than poetical inspiration, has put some modern poets upon delineating.  He merely gives his monks an inclination to be busy in the affairs of others, after renouncing the world for themselves; though in respect of pious frauds he does not make them very scrupulous.”