the religious pretenders of the time of the very vices which they charged to the Papists. To him who reads the play from the point of view of an Elizabethan Catholic, many fragments start into new life as when Antonio says, in reference to his floating ventures—

"Should I go to church

And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks ?” (i. 1).

And, when Portia says to Bassanio (iii. 2), “I fear you speak upon the rack, where men enforced do speak anything," is not this an expression of contemptuous disbelief in all the evidence upon which so many pretended Popish conspirators suffered the death of traitors in the days of Shakespeare? The scandalous use of the rack to get evidence for any mare's nest was complained of by Selden. The rack is used nowhere as in England: in other countries it is used in judicature when there is a semiplena probatio, a half-proof against a man; then to see if they can make it full, they rack him if he will not confess; but here in England they take a man and rack him, I do not know why nor when-not in time of judicature, but when somebody bids." 1

It is interesting to remark how throughout almost the whole play Shakespeare gives way to the didactic spirit. The characters are sententious, and deliver wise saws beyond precedent, and in the present

1 Table Talk, sub voce "Trial."

instance they seem to extend the action of the play, after the dramatic interest has ceased. The conclusion of the play is the discomfiture of Shylock in Act iv. Act v. is a most charming and poetical idyll, tempered with philosophy; but it hangs fire after the dramatic passion of the trial scene, and is therefore generally omitted in acting. It contains, however, some gems of the kind proper to our subject. Lorenzo's discourses on the harmony of creation, audible to immortal souls, already quoted, and on the power of music (v. 1), are both in this act. So also is Portia's philosophy of respect. "Nothing is good without respect," or the true relation of a thing to its time, manner, circumstances, for by this alone things obtain their fitness, and fulfil their respective parts. The same axiom is repeated a few lines later. Things by reason seasoned are to their right praise and true perfection." Both these speeches reiterate the doctrine of the necessity of priority, order, and degree in the political as in the natural order. In the scenes at the Caskets (ii. 7 and ii. 9), Shakespeare makes the proud Moorish prince and the "idiot" of Aragon discourse as wisely as Polonius to Laertes. is to be noted that it is quite characteristic of Shakespeare to distinguish his fools, not by their foolish sayings, but by their foolish doings. This ideal of folly is not so much the inanity of Slender, Simple, or Sir Andrew Aguecheek, as a certain want of connection between the understanding and the

It

practical reason, a sharp sight with a want of judgment to choose. Such as Portia describes

"O these deliberate fools! When they do choose
They have the wisdom by their wit to lose" (ii. 9).

"Measure for Measure" is another of the didactic plays, with a purpose similar to that of the "Merchant of Venice," for it is a kind of discussion on the penal code. As in "King John" the several theories of extraneous interference in the quarrels of a kingdom successively appear, and solve themselves by the mere progress of the history, so in "Measure for Measure" do several theories of penal law crop up to give rise to endless complications, and to refute themselves by their impracticability. "Measure for Measure" was acted twice before James I. and his court in the first year of his reign, at the time when the king was assailed on all sides, especially by the Catholics, with requests to mitigate the bloody laws of England. When James made his triumphal entry into London, Alleyne the actor recited to him the lines of Ben Jonson, where the coming of the new king was said to have

"Made men see

Once more the face of welcome liberty;"

to have restored the golden age, rescued innocence from ravenous greatness, stayed the evictions of the peasantry, alleviated the fears of the rich to be made guilty for their wealth, and diminished the

murderous lust of vile spies. When three days later (March 19, 1603) he rode to Parliament for the first time, Ben Jonson made Themis rehearse to him "All the cunning tracts and thriving statutes," while afterwards

"The bloody, base, and barbarous she did quote ;
Where laws were made to serve the tyrant's will,
Where sleeping they could save, and waking kill."

About the same time the Catholics of England were preparing an address to James, protesting their loyalty, and begging for a mitigation of the "cruel persecution which had made England odious, caused the decay of trade, the shedding of blood, and an unprecedented increase of subsidies and taxes, and discontented minds innumerable." Let "the lenity of a man," they said, "re-edify that which the uninformed anger of a woman destroyed." One of the advisers of the Catholics, whose letter is preserved in the State Paper office, declared that one of the first things to be done was to petition for liberty of religion, and abrogation of those bloody laws, and also to impress strongly on the king that nothing could tend more to the security of his person and assurance of his estate, than to show favour and grace to the Catholics, by which he would cut off all practices against his estate and person, seeing the Catholics, by the cruelty of the bloody laws and intolerable burden of persecution, had either just cause, or show of just cause, to pursue their liberties by all means,

JAMES I. AND CATHOLICS

351

"2

and with all princes, to the utmost of their power. Whereas favour shown to the Catholics would not only assure the king from all attempts of foreigners who cannot take hold of England but by a party at home, but also fortify the throne against the insolence of the Puritans.1 Sir Walter Raleigh was an advocate on the same side, as we may see from his letter to Nottingham in Cayley's "Life of Raleigh." It will be seen that the reasoning just described is exactly like that in the "Merchant of Venice-a dissuasion from violence on the ground that it is a game at which two can play. The same argument was employed in Father Parsons' "Memorial " (p. 248), and it reappears some two centuries later as the main foundation of the famous letters of Peter Plymley.

It looks as if the play had been composed for James. When the Duke says—

"I love the people,

But do not like 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" (i. 1).

It reminds one of the king's proclamation about the throngs which pressed round him in his journey from Scotland.

The Duke's treatment of Lucio seems inconsistent

1 Dom. James I., vol. vi. Nos. 56 and 63.

2 Vol. ii. p. II.