mean the most "moral"; this accords with the whole scheme of the play. Isabella--we conclude with the poet's own description--is a saint. I am not quoting "a thing ensky'd and sainted"; these words have reference to the cloister; but I allude to III, i, 186-7. Again, let me illustrate, and by comparison; there is no inductive method in literature. Isabella we may compare with the Portia of The Merchant of Venice, and the distinction is most striking; she combines all the daring of Portia with cold calmness and a hesitancy of peculiar charm. Portia would have importuned Angelo quite otherwise (II, ii) ; Isabella is at war 'twixt will and will not; but for the urgency of Lucio she might have withdrawn from the contest; this is one of the finest things in the play. But as she proceeds, love dominates the scruple of morality, and she gains the respite of another interview.--LUCE, Handbook to Shakespeare's Works.

The reigning Duke, who had thus allowed this law to slumber, had done so from kindness of heart and innate mildness. He thinks himself justified in bearing testimony to himself that even to the envious he must appear a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. He holds that high moral opinion that the ruler and judge ought to be as holy as he is severe, a pattern in himself, "grace to stand and virtue go"; he considers him as a tyrant who punishes in others the faults into which he falls himself. His whole nature is that of a man of moderation, gentleness, and calmness, his whole endeavor that of a circumspect philosopher. He loves his people, but he does not relish their loud applause and thronging, nor does he think the man of safe discretion that affects it. He has a leaning to solitude, and plays the part of a friar perhaps even better than that of a statesman; his earnest endeavor was always to know himself, but it also seemed a kind of necessity with him to know men and to test the instruments of his rule. This circumspect wisdom, never seeing things im-

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