The beautiful things which Isabella is made to utter, have, like the sayings of Portia, become proverbial; but in spirit and character they are as distinct as are the two women. In all that Portia says, we confess the power of a rich poetical imagination, blended with a quick practical spirit of observation, familiar with the surfaces of things; while there is a profound yet simple morality, a depth of religious feeling, a touch of melancholy, in Isabella's sentiments, and something earnest and authoritative in the manner and expression, as though they had grown up in her mind from long and deep meditation in the silence and solitude of her convent cell:-- O it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. Could great men thunder, As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet: For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder Merciful Heaven! Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle. O but man, proud man! Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep. Great men may jest with saints, 'tis wit in them; But in the less, foul profanation. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. Authority, although it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself That skins the vice o' the top. Go to you, bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault: if it confess A natural guiltiness such as his is, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better. The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. 'Tis not impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute As Angelo; even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, Be an arch villain. Her fine powers of reasoning, and that natural uprightness and purity which no sophistry can warp, and no allurement betray, are farther displayed in the second scene with Angelo. ANGELO. What would you do? ISABELLA. As much for my poor brother as myself; That is, were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed That, longing, I have been sick for, ere I'd yield My body up to shame. ANGELO.