25. Measure for Measure: 1603. Mr. Malone's reasons for placing the composition of this play towards the close of 1603, appear to us perfectly unshaken by the arguments which Mr. Chalmers has brought forward for the purpose of referring it to the subsequent year. The validity of the alteration which this gentleman wishes to establish, turns almost altogether on the cogency of the following statement:—"Claudio," he says, "complains of 'the neglected act being enforced against him.' Isabella laments her being the sister of one Claudio, condemned, on the act of fornication, to lose his head. Now, the act which was thus alluded to, though not with the precision of an Old Bailey solicitor, 'was the statute to restrain all persons from marriage, until their former wives, and former husbands be dead,' for which such persons, so offending, were to suffer death, as in cases of felony. It was against this act, then, which did not operate till after the end of the session, on the 7th of July, 1604, that Shakspeare's satire was levelled."[452:B]
But this very act, it seems from Mr. Chalmers's reference, was passed in the second year of James the First, and how, therefore, could Claudio's complaint of a "neglected act being enforced against him," apply to a statute thus recently issued, and whose operation had only just commenced? The objection is insurmountable, and
Claudio's allusion was most assuredly to the act formerly passed on this subject in the first year of Edward the Sixth.
The primary source of the fable of Measure for Measure, is to be traced to the fifth novel of the eighth decade of the Ecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, which was repeated in the tragic histories of Belle Forest; but Shakspeare's immediate original was the play of Promos and Cassandra of George Whetstone, published in 1578, and of which the argument, as given by the author, has been annexed by Mr. Steevens to Shakspeare's production. On this elder drama, and on Shakspeare's improvements on its plot, the following pertinent remarks have been lately made by Mr. Dunlop:—"The crime of the brother," he observes, speaking of Whetstone's comedy, "is softened into seduction: Nor is he actually executed for his transgression, as a felon's head is presented in place of the one required by the magistrate. The king being complained to, orders the magistrate's head to be struck off, and the sister begs his life, even before she knows that her brother is safe. Shakspeare has adopted the alteration in the brother's crime, and the substitution of the felon's head. The preservation of the brother's life by this device might have been turned to advantage, as affording a ground for the intercession of his sister; but Isabella pleads for the life of Angelo before she knows her brother is safe, and when she is bound to him by no tie, as the Duke does not order him to marry Isabella. From his own imagination Shakspeare had added the character of Mariana, Angelo's forsaken mistress, who saves the honour of the heroine by being substituted in her place. Isabella, indeed, had refused, even at her brother's intercession, to give up her virtue to preserve his life. This is an improvement on the incidents of the novel, as it imperceptibly diminishes our sense of the atrocity of Angelo, and adds dignity to the character of the heroine. The secret superintendence, too, of the Duke over the whole transaction, has a good effect, and increases our pleasure in the detection of the villain. In the fear of Angelo, lest the brother should take revenge 'for so receiving a dishonoured life,
with ransom of such shame,' Shakspeare has given a motive to conduct which, in his prototypes, is attributed to wanton cruelty."[454:A]
Of Measure for Measure, independent of the comic characters which afford a rich fund of entertainment, the great charm springs from the lovely example of female excellence in the person of Isabella. Piety, spotless purity, tenderness combined with firmness, and an eloquence the most persuasive, unite to render her singularly interesting and attractive. To save the life of her brother, she hastens to quit the peaceful seclusion of her convent, and moves, amid the votaries of corruption and hypocrisy, amid the sensual, the vulgar, and the profligate, as a being of a higher order, as a ministering spirit from the throne of grace. Her first interview with Angelo, and the immediately subsequent one with Claudio, exhibit, along with the most engaging feminine diffidence and modesty, an extraordinary display of intellectual energy, of dexterous argument, and of indignant contempt. Her pleadings before the lord deputy are directed with a strong appeal both to his understanding and his heart, while her sagacity and address in the communication of the result of her appointment with him to her brother, of whose weakness and irresolution she is justly apprehensive, are, if possible, still more skilfully marked, and add another to the multitude of instances which have established for Shakspeare an unrivalled intimacy with the finest feelings of our nature.
The page of poetry, indeed, has not two nobler passages to produce, than those which paint the suspicions of Isabella as to the fortitude of her brother, her encouragement of his nascent resolution, and the fears which he subsequently entertains of the consequences of dissolution:—
"Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,