nine instances out of ten to the same kind of remark, 'Go to, sir, you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.' Shakespeare was in one sense the least moral of all writers; for morality (commonly so called) is made up of antipathies; and his talent consisted in sympathy with human nature, in all its shapes, degrees, depressions, and elevations. The object of the pedantic moralist is to find out the bad in everything: his was to show that 'there is some soul of goodness in things evil'. Even Master Barnardine is not left to the mercy of what others think of him; but when he comes in, speaks for himself, and pleads his own cause, as well as if counsel had been assigned him. In one sense, Shakespeare was no moralist at all: in another, he was the greatest of all moralists. He was a moralist in the same sense in which nature is one. He taught what he had learnt from her. He showed the greatest knowledge of humanity with the greatest fellow-feeling for it. One of the most dramatic passages in the present play is the interview between Claudio and his sister, when she comes to inform him of the conditions on which Angelo will spare his life. Claudio. Let me know the point. Isabella.--O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die? 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. Claudio. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness; if I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. Isabella. There spake my brother! there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die: Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy-- Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth emmew As faulcon doth the fowl--is yet a devil. Claudio. The princely Angelo? Isabella. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In princely guards! Dost thou think, Claudio, If I would yield him my virginity, Thou might'st be freed? Claudio. Oh, heavens! it cannot be. Isabella. Yes, he would give it thee, for this rank offence, So to offend him still: this night's the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou dy'st to-morrow. Claudio. Thou shalt not do't. Isabella. Oh, were it but my life, I'd throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin. Claudio. Thanks, dear Isabel. Isabella. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.