LITERARY HISTORY.

Measure for Measure was first printed in the Folio of 1623. No external evidence as to its date has been found, and the internal evidence is both slight and doubtful. Tyrwhitt considered that two passages in the early part of the play contain an allusion to the demeanour of James I. on his entry into England at the time of his accession in 1603. In i. 1. 68-73 the Duke says:

I'll privily away. I love the people,

But do not love to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it.

Again, in ii. 4. 24-30 it is observed by
Angelo:

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

"I cannot help thinking," says Tyrwhitt, "that Shakspeare, in these two passages, intended to flatter the unkingly weakness of James the First, which made him so impatient of the crowds that flocked to see him, especially upon his first coming, that, as some historians say, he restrained them by a proclamation." The Old-Spelling editors quote in their notes the following corroborative passage: But our King coming through the North (Banquetting, and Feasting by the way) the applause of the people in so obsequious, and submissive a manner (still admiring Change) was checkt by an honest plain Scotsman (unused to such humble acclama

tions) with a Prophetical expression; This people will spoyl a gud King. The King as unused, so tired with multitudes, especially in his Hunting (which he did as he went) caused an inhibition to be published, to restrain the people from Hunting Him. Happily being fearfull of so great a Concourse, as this Novelty produced, the old Hatred betwixt the Borderers not forgotten, might make him apprehend it to be of a greater extent: though it was generally imputed to a desire of enjoying his Recreation without interruption" (Arthur Wilson's History of Great Britain, 1653, p. 3). Other passages which have been conjectured to contain historical allusions are i. 2. 5: "Heaven grant us its peace;" and i. 2. 83: "What with the war, what with the sweat;" the last clause having perhaps some reference to the "sweating sickness" or plague, which in 1603 carried off more than 30,000 people in London; and the allusions to "peace" and "war" having perhaps some reference to the war with Spain, which came to an end in the autumn of 1604. All this is vague enough, but it may be said to lend a little colour to the theory which places the date of the play in 1603 or early in 1604. At all events, there can be no reasonable doubt that Measure for Measure belongs to a late, but not the latest, period of Shakespeare's work-to the period with which all its characteristics link it, the period of Hamlet, of Othello, of Troilus and Cressida.

The direct sources of the plot are Whetstone's "endless comedy," The Right Excellent and Famous Historye of Promos and Cassandra, 1578, and the prose version of the same story by the same writer in The Heptameron of Civil Discourses, 1582. Whetstone himself derived his story from the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio (Parte Seconda, Deca

ottava, novella v.). The outline of Whetstone's comedy may be given in the "Argument of the Whole History" prefixed by the author or his publisher. "In the cyttie of Julio (sometimes vnder the dominion of Coruinus, Kinge of Hungarie and Boemia) there was a law, that what man so euer committed adultery should lose his head, and the woman offender should weare some disguised apparel during her life, to make her infamouslye noted. This seuere lawe, by the fauour of some mercifull magistrate, became little regarded vntill the time of Lord Promos auctority; who conuicting a yong gentleman named Andrugio of incontinency, condemned both him and his minion to the execution of this statute. Andrugio had a very vertuous and beawtiful gentlewoman to his sister, named Cassandra: Cassandra to enlarge her brothers life, submitted an humble petition to the Lord Promos: Promos regarding her good behauiours, and fantasying her great beawtie, was much delighted with the sweete order of her talke; anddoying good, that euill might come thereof, for a time he repryu'd her brother; but, wicked man, tourning his liking vnto vnlawfull lust, he set downe the spoile of her honour raunsome for her brothers life. Chaste Cassandra, abhorring both him and his sute, by no perswasion would yeald to this raunsome: but in fine, wonne with the importunitye of hir brother (pleading for life) vpon these conditions she agreede to Promos; first that he should pardon her brother, and after marry her. Promos, as feareles in promisse as carelesse in performance, with sollemne vowe sygned her conditions: but worse then any infydel, his will satisfyed, he performed neither the one nor the other; for, to keepe his aucthoritye vnspotted with fauour, and to preuent Cassandraes clamors, he commaunded the gayler secretly to present Cassandra with her brothers head. The gayler, with the outcryes of Andrugio, abhorryng Promos lewdenes, by the prouidence of God prouided thus for his safety. He presented Cassandra with

1 Hecatommithi ouero Cento Novelle di M. Giovanbattista Giraldi Cinthio. In Venezia, Appresso Enea de Alaris, MDLXXIIII. Pp. 130-135.

2 Probably there is some misprint or omission here.

a felon's head newlie executed, who (being mangled, knew it not from her brother's, by the gayler who was set at libertie) was so agreeued at this trecherye, that, at the pointe to kyl her selfe, she spared that stroke to be auenged of Promos: and deuisyng a way, she concluded to make her fortunes knowne vnto the kinge. She (executinge this resolution) was so highly fauoured of the king, that forthwith he hasted to do justice on Promos: whose judgement was, to marrye Cassandra, to repaire her crased3 honour; which donne, for his hainous offence he should lose his head. This maryage solempnised, Cassandra, tyed in the greatest bondes of affection to her husband, became an earnest suter for his life: the kinge (tendringe the generall benefit of the common weale before her special ease, although he fauoured her much,) would not graunt her sute. Andrugio (disguised amonge the company) sorrowing the griefe of his sister, bewrayde his safetye, and craued pardon. The kinge, to renowne the vertues of Cassandra, pardoned both him and Promos." It will be seen from this summary of the main part of the action that Shakespeare is indebted to Whetstone for the general framework of his plot; it will be seen equally that he has transformed the revolting incoherencies of the original story into a closely-knit, credible, and artistic whole. Shakespeare's debt to the comedy of his predecessor, beyond the mere framework-the ground-plan of his building-may be set down at practically nothing, Promos and Cassandra is a crude and shapeless cento of ill-digested material; a mere succession of heavy scenes set forth in jolting doggerel; bearing by no means so much relation to the play of Shakespeare as the quarries at Carrara bear to the marbles of Michelangelo. A quarry, a storehouse, we may call it: that at the very outside; but certainly nothing with any pretence to art or vitality, nothing with any right to exist on its proper merits. No hints towards the characterization of any of the dramatis personæ common to Shakespeare and to Whetstone could be found in the lifeless pages of the earlier play

3 Crased, i.e. broken, damaged. See Mids. Night's Dream, note 17.

wright. Wherever for a moment there is the smallest similarity in thought or word--and this is very seldom indeed, considering the strong similarity of the incidents-such likeness is nothing more or less than inevitable, and exists simply in the most obvious truisms, so to speak, of natural action. In Cinthio's version of the story there are one or two natural touches, good enough, if he had seen them, to have suggested a thought to Shakespeare. Epitia, for instance, the Isabella of Measure for Measure, is spoken of as one to whom Philosophy had taught how the human soul should meet every hap (“cui la Filosofia haueua insegnato qual debbia essere l'animo humano in ogni fortuna"). Could anything truer be said of Isabella? Altogether Cinthio is very much more graphic and effective than Whetstone, either in the prose or poetry of his English imitator. Hazlitt, in his Shakespeare's Library, quotes two similar stories, told briefly and barely by Goulart, in his Admirable and Memorable Histories, 1607. Other such stories are known, some of them on historical evidence, such as the story of the governor of Flushing, in the old French chronicles. Perhaps, as has been suggested, the very story as we find it in Cinthio was based on an actual occurrence in the dark of the Italian despots. ages

STAGE HISTORY.

Of the performance of Measure for Measure we have no record before the Restoration; and when theatres were again licensed, the only form in which this play appeared on the stage was in the sadly-transformed shape of Davenant's jumble of this play and Much Ado, called The Law against Lovers, which has already been alluded to in the Introduction to Much Ado (vol. iv. p. 172). What amazing devil, as the late Charles Dickens would have said, possessed Sir William Davenant to spoil two plays, so different in their nature but each so good of its kind, by jumbling them together, it is difficult to conceive. It is possible, if the tradition that Davenant was Shakespeare's son be true, that he owed his father a grudge for begetting so extremely ill-looking an offspring. If so, it must be owned that, in this

The first act follows the story of Measure for Measure pretty closely as far as the incidents go. The effect of the introduction of Benedick and Beatrice is that they are both entirely deprived of the wit and vivacity which characterized them in Shakespeare's Much Ado, while nearly all the beautiful poetry of Measure for Measure is ruthlessly deformed into the dreariest prose-verse.

For a specimen of Davenant's work we may take the following lines from the Duke's speech to Angelo in act i. scene 1:

That victory gives me now free leisure to
Pursue my old design of travelling;
Whilst, hiding what I am, in fit disguise,
I may compare the customs, prudent laws,
And managements of foreign states with ours.

The victory alluded to is that which Benedick has just won. The scraps of Shakespeare that are dragged in, whether from Much Ado or Measure for Measure, but especially from the former, seem sadly out of place. Here is a specimen of Davenant's originality. After a scene between Benedick and Beatrice, Viola,