Nevertheless the general current of things is far from musical, and the issues greatly disappointing.  The drowsy Justice which we expect and wish to see awakened, and set in living harmony with Mercy, apparently relapses at last into a deeper sleep than ever.  Our loyalty to Womanhood is not a little wounded by the humiliations to which poor Mariana stoops, at the ghostly counsels of her spiritual guide, that she may twine her life with that of the execrable hypocrite who has wronged her sex so deeply.  That, amid the general impunity, the mere telling of some ridiculous lies to the disguised Duke about himself, should draw down a disproportionate severity upon Lucio, the lively, unprincipled, fantastic jester and wag, who might well be let pass as a privileged character, makes the whole look more as if done in mockery of justice than in honour of mercy.  Except, indeed, the noble unfolding of Isabella, scarce any thing turns out to our wish; nor are we much pleased at seeing her diverted from the quiet tasks and holy contemplations where her heart is so much at home; although, as Gervinus observes, “she has that two-sided nature, the capacity to enjoy the world, according to circumstances, or to dispense with it.”

The title of this play is apt to give a wrong impression of its scope and purpose. Measure for Measure is itself equivocal; but the subject-matter here fixes it to be taken in the sense, not of the old Jewish proverb, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” but of the divine precept, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”  Thus the title falls in with one of Portia’s appeals to Shylock, “We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.”  The moral centre of the play properly stands in avoidance of extremes,—­

           “the golden mean and quiet flow
    Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife.”

THE TEMPEST.

The Tempest is on all hands regarded as one of Shakespeare’s perfectest works.  Some of his plays, I should say, have beams in their eyes; but this has hardly so much as a mote; or, if it have any, my own eyes are not clear enough to discern it.  I dare not pronounce the work faultless, for this is too much to affirm of any human workmanship; but I venture to think that whatever faults it may have are such as criticism is hardly competent to specify.  In the characters of Ariel, Miranda, and Caliban, we have three of the most unique and original conceptions that ever sprang from the wit of man.  We can scarce imagine how the Ideal could be pushed further beyond Nature; yet we here find it clothed with all the truth and life of Nature.  And the whole texture of incident and circumstance is framed in keeping with that Ideal; so that all the parts and particulars cohere together, mutually supporting and supported.