In the essay on “Measure for Measure” he shows that the play is a remodelling of an earlier and rougher composition; but he points out that the value and significance of it is that Shakespeare works out of it “a morality so characteristic that the play might well pass for the central expression of his moral judgments.” He says that we have in it “a real example of that sort of writing which is sometimes described as _suggestive_, and which by the help of certain subtly calculated hints only, brings into distinct shape the reader’s own half-developed imaginings.” He notes the dark invasion of the shadow of death in the play, death the “‘great disguiser,’ blanching the features of youth and spoiling its goodly hair, touching the fine Claudio even with its disgraceful associations.” And further, he touches with exquisite skill the way in which Shakespeare here brings out, by a sudden vignette, a romantic picture of a scene; the episode of Mariana, “the moated grange, with its dejected mistress, its long, listless, discontented days, where we hear only the voice of a boy broken off suddenly in the midst of one of the loveliest songs of Shakespeare, or of Shakespeare’s school, is the pleasantest of many glimpses we get here of pleasant places.” Not less delicate is the apprehension of the character of Isabella, so tranquil, chaste, and sisterly at first, changed, by the inrush of contending passions, in a moment, into something fierce, vindictive, and tiger-like. He sums up his conclusion by saying that the charm of the work is its underlying conception of morality, not the morality which opposes a blunt and stubborn front to the delicate activities of life, but the artistic morality that watches, judges, values and appreciates, and is on the side of culture rather than on the side of prejudice and rectitude. The essay on “Shakespeare’s English Kings” (1889) is rather a slight performance, and the analysis of a somewhat superficial kind. Pater, for instance, almost fails to realise the magnificence of the conception of Richard II., the tragedy of which consists in the fact that, at a sudden crisis, a prompt force and vigour are demanded of a ruler whose nature is full indeed of wise and fruitful thoughts, but whose position calls for a bluff and cheerful energy, when all that he can give is a subtle and contemplative philosophy. But he traces the general motive finely:— “No!” he says, “Shakespeare’s kings are not, nor are meant to be, great men: rather, little or quite ordinary humanity, thrust upon greatness, with those pathetic results, the natural self-pity of the weak heightened in them into irresistible appeal to others as the net result of their royal prerogative. One after another, they seem to lie composed in Shakespeare’s embalming pages, with just that touch of nature about them, making the whole world akin.”