for nothing, we have only need to confess our weakness to find in the divine grace not only true virtue, but strength likewise, for exercising it. No doubt the way in which life leads us to this wisdom, is not always the merriest. But neither art, nor comedy itself, have mere laughter for their end. Indeed, to laugh aright we must even be deeply serious, and the laugh which has not a depth of gravity beneath it, is childish, silly, and most strange to art. This truth must have been felt by all who have understood and found merriment in the comedies of Shakspeare.

A few words, in conclusion, on the title of the piece. It is not intended, as might perhaps be supposed, to convey the meaning that like ought to be repaid with like, according to the old law of talio-a limb for a limb, and life for life. Such is its purport in an ironical sense alone. Its true sense is that of the beautiful petition in the prayer which Our Lord has taught us :-" Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." None of us, in short, ought mentally even to judge another: for not one of us is without sin, and we are all liable to the very fault which we condemn. As, therefore, each looks for mercy from God, he ought in like manner to shew mercy-to give what he asks, and with the same measure that he wishes it to be meted unto himself, he ought to mete unto others. And in this sense is like to be given for like, and Measure for Measure.

And should any Quixote of virtue-whether pedant or Pharisee— be bold enough, because of a few loose jokes, to accuse the greatest of Christian poets of immorality and impiety, let him in punishment of his temerity read over this charming and irresistible poem-once, twice, aye ten times, and in all probability he will yet again return to it.

Moreover, "Measure for Measure" exhibits more clearly than any other piece the profound skill of Shakspeare, in giving intellectual depth and dramatic life to his traditional materials. It has been already stated, that the same subject had been previously adapted to the stage in 1578, by Whetstone, in his "Promos and Cassandra," who again took it from the tales of Giraldi Cinthio (Hecommithi ovvero Cento Novelle &c.), of which he has also given an English version in his Heptamerone (1582). Shakspeare was unquestionably acquainted both with the drama and the novel; every

particular in which he has deviated from both is an improvement, not more dramatic than sensible, as the thoughtful reader will readily see from the few alterations which I shall enumerate. As the story is given in Echtermeyer and Simrock's collection, I. 95 F., and Whetstone's drama is one of the "Six old plays on which Shakspeare founded his "Measure for Measure," (Lond. 1779, I. 1); the reader may easily satisfy himself further. In Cinthio's Tales, Claudio (Vico) is actually executed: this particular Whetstone himself has changed, but differently from Shakspeare. In both the Duke (the Kaiser Maximilian of the tale) remains throughout behind the scenes; but Shakspeare has made him a leading personage, and thereby given him a wholly different character, shape, and importance. According to Cinthio and Whetstone, Isabella resigns herself to the guilty passion of Angelo. In Shakspeare, Mariana is substituted for her, which materially softens the actual guilt of Angelo, and room is left for his forgiveness by the Duke, which in the other case would appear unjust and unrighteous. Lastly, several of the inferior characters are of Shakspeare's own invention. The main point, however, is the idea which pervades and animates the whole, and that is entirely his own.

The comedy which we are next to consider displays in a higher degree then even "Measure for Measure," the "Merchant of Venice," or any other drama, the characteristic peculiarity of Shakspeare's comedy. At the same time it appears to me to possess much of the spirit of romantic poetry. As its fulness of bitter humour spontaneously unites itself with tragedy and the tragic view of life, so this profound seriousness and tragic suffering and fate are not only not unknown to the romantic-comic view, but belong rather to the very notion of romantic comedy. In its details and special motives it has much in common with tragedy, but the position relatively to the whole which it gives to these details is very different; it works them out in a different manner from tragedy, so that they thereby acquire an essentially different signification, just as the general views on which they are respectively founded are discrepant. So long as we adhere to the vulgar idea of comedy, it will perhaps sound strange to call Cymbeline-that marvellous drama-a comedy; and yet we shall acknowledge that such is its true character if once we dis

possess our minds of the common error which confounds comedy with farce. Cymbeline may be well designated a comedy of destiny: it embraces in its subject all the objective foundations of morality, and the most powerful relations and conditions of life— wedlock, the family, and the state. For by destiny, in the comic domain, we do not understand divine Providence immediately, but either that subjective and objective chance which rules human life as a higher power, or else the intrigues of man himself, which by their mutual entanglement cross and paralyse each other, and consequently bring about at last a very different result from what they were originally intended to produce. Of these two the former constitutes the destiny of the comedy of fancy, the latter is that of intrigue. Both, however, do not properly constitute destiny. While the powers which apparently rule the life of man mutually destroy each other, and their own empire is subverted, a very different one is established, and by the contrast we are taught to discern the divine Providence itself, guiding and disposing the events and contingencies of life.

Cymbeline is essentially a comedy of intrigue. Its intrigue, however, assumes externally and apparently the form of tragic destiny, which, indeed, becomes truly comic, whenever (as, e.g. in Mullner's woeful tragedies) it goes consciously and intriguingly to work with all sorts of far-fetched tricks and artifices. In Cymbeline we meet with the most diversified and manifold intrigues: the moral weakness and perversity of the dramatic personages bring at first suffering and woe on all around them, dissolving the ties of family and affection, and plunging the state itself in confusion; but their intrigues ultimately close with and frustrate each other, and thereby effect undesignedly that which ought to be. Thus at the opening, Posthumus, who has secretly married the daughter of Cymbeline, is punished by that monarch by banishment, at the instigation of his wicked queen, who had intended to secure the throne for her own son, by uniting him in marriage to her stepdaughter. Imogene has sinned against a parent's authority, and the father indulges his anger and passion upon his child and his son-in-law. In the next place, Iachimo, by his cunning and artifice, wins the strange wager he has laid with Posthumus, who, in despair and revenge, meditates the murder of his chaste and faithful

wife. But his design miscarries, through a counter-intrigue of his servant Pisanio, on whom he enjoins the execution of his vengeance, who induces Imogene to leave the court and her home. She purposes to assume the garb of a page, and to proceed to Italy in search of her husband. Sick and weak, she takes refuge in the cave of Bellarius, where she is thrown into a death-like swoon by a potion which the queen had received from her physician for poison, and had given to Pisanio as a strengthening draught, in order to remove both him and Imogene out of her way. Pisanio's artifice and his own guilty designs bring Cloten (the queen's son by a former husband) dressed in the clothes of Posthumus, to the cave of Bellarius, who, to revenge his own unjust banishment from the court, had stolen the king's sons, while they were of tender age, and here brought them up as his own. One of the latter kills the boastful and blood-thirsty Cloten, and casts his head into the river. His body, and the seemingly lifeless Imogene, are placed for burial in a cleft of the rock. Here Imogene awakes from her insensibility, and deceived by his dress, mistakes the trunk of Cloten for that of her husband. In this sorrow she is found by Lucius, a Roman general, commanding in the war against Cymbeline, and is taken into his service as a page. Deceived by Pisanio into the belief that Imogene has been murdered, Posthumus has joined the Roman army in the hope of meeting death in battle on his native soil. But as soon as he lands, the love of country prevails, and changing his plan, takes his place as a common peasant in the British ranks. By his valour and that of Bellarius and his reputed sons, the British win the battle which they had almost lost. But the desire of death leads Posthumus again to change sides, and he is taken among the Roman prisoners. As he is led to death, he hears Iachimo confess his wicked artifice, and is induced to declare himself. At the same time, the queen, in the ravings of a disturbed mind and mortal sickness, confesses her own ill deeds. The discovery of Cloten's murder extorts from Bellarius his secret; Imogene also is found, and all ends in recognition, and pardon, and peace, and joy. When weakness, malice, and perversity have been caught in their own toils, order and harmony are restored to the unsettled relations of wedlock, the family, and the state. For these fundamental supports of human life and civilization, rest

themselves on the empire and law of intellect: man's free-will both raises and casts them down again; but while they are in confusion he cannot himself subsist, and an inherent necessity, involved in his very freedom, quickly restores order to the universal disorder and chaos.

The mind and life of man are, in short, here viewed under the same aspect as in the "Tempest," that, viz., of his will and conduct. But as in the present case the story assumes the shape of a comedy. of intrigue, the volition does not stop at the mere designs and intentions, but passes on into real actions and events; and plans and deeds are purposely accumulated in order that they may the more fully work out their own comic paralysis, and the more forcibly illustrate what is universally true of the represented idea. While in the "Tempest," agreeably to its fantastic character, the human will and conduct, conquered by a secret power of good objectively opposing it, involuntarily assume a very different and opposite form to its own bias; the nature of the comedy of intrigue required that it should be brought to a subjective termination. In the former the power of good is positive; in the latter negative, so far as it reveals itself merely by the destruction of evil. To exhibit the contradiction and insufficiency of human plans and conduct, which become, as it were, a destiny both to their immediate agents and others, as well as the nothingness of such a self-created destiny, appears to be the ground idea of " Cymbeline." Shakspeare, we may well say, has here sought to give a poetical illustration of the proposition-man is not master of his own lot, which is unquestionably as true as its contrary. It is, however, the living contemplation of the whole of life from this particular point of view, and not any isolated and dead notion, which in its philosophical generality would be most unsuited to art, that forms the soul of the represented story.

Thus considered, the poem becomes at once thoroughly intelligible, and no single figure in it appears superfluous; every movement necessary and each single character indispensable, as only serving to display the ground thought in some fresh turn and new modification, and the multitude of the dramatic personages, as well as of the mass of incidents and suffering, arrange themselves into one harmonious and well organized whole. The Queen and Imogene, Cloten and Posthumus, are evidently the principal contrasts around