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failure, detection, and disgrace. There is little in the 

 plot to recommend it dramatically, or in any incident it 

 discloses. If we deny to it any merit beyond that of 

 pleasing an audience, and accept the Reviewer's dictum, 

 " If that fail all fails," it is, I cannot but think, a lamentable 

 failure. It is, however, animated by the loftiest purpose, 

 as it is pregnant with the noblest eloqvience. 



The play opens with the transfer of authority by the 

 Duke, and with an explanation of the trust thus confided 

 to the unworthy deputy. From the deposition and 

 acceptance of this power, to the end of the play, scarcely 

 an expression falls that does not refer to the influence for 

 good and evil, thus vested, thus to be abused. It con- 

 trasts man's rule with divine government. How — 

 " Man, proud man, 



Dressed in a little brief authority, 



Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 



His glassy essence — like an angry ape, 



Plaj^s such fantastic tricks before high heaven 



As make the angels weep." 

 The play revolves round this title of " Measure for 

 Measure," of man's measure and the Christian measure, 

 without divergence, as closely as if it were an acted 

 charade, or a sermon to this text. * 



Mr. G. A. Brown, in 1838, prior to the publication of 

 M. TJlrici's book, and without regard to any hj-pothesis, 

 remarked, "unless we coxild believe that Shakspere could 

 write a long dramatic treatise on a subject without in- 

 tending it, unless, in fact, he knew not what he was about 

 we ought to regard the fable of "Measure for Measure," as 

 adopted by him for the purpose of canvassing the argument 

 on chastity and incontinence." M. Ulrici proceeds much 

 further, and in illustration of a preconceived theory, 

 analyses the play, not as different from other plays of 

 Shakspere in this particular, but as one of many, subject 

 to the same laws of composition. To a system by which 



