117.-ISABELLA AND ANGELO. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire, England, April 23, 1564. His only opportunities for study were those afforded by a free grammar-school in his native town. As a man, De he is described as full of kindly wit, gentle, and good-natured. Quincey says of his writings, "O mighty poet! thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert, but that the further we press in our discoveries the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye has seen nothing but accident." He died April 23, 1616. The first edition of his collected works appeared in the year 1623. Angelo. You are welcome. What's your will? Please but your Honor hear me. Angelo. Well, what's your suit? Isabella. I have a brother is condemned to die; I do beseech you let it be his fault, And not my brother. Angelo. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done. Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, Isabella. Oh, just but severe law! I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your Honor! Lucio (to Isabella). Give it not o'er so. intreat him; (Retiring.) To him again; Kneel down before him; hang upon his gown. Isabella. Must he needs die? Angelo. Maiden, no remedy. Isabella. Yes, I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy. Angelo. I will not do it. Isabella. But can you, if you would? Angelo. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. Isabella. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touched with that remorse As mine is to him? Angelo. He's sentenced; 'tis too late. Why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again. Well believe this, Isabella. I would to heaven I had your potency, Angelo. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, Isabella. Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; But judge you as you are? O, think on that; Angelo. Be you content, fair maid; It is the law, not I, condemns your brother. It should be thus with him he must die to-morrow. Angelo. I show it most of all when I show justice; Which a dismissed offence would after gall, And do him right, that answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied: Your brother dies to-morrow; be content. Isabella. So you must be the first that gives this sen tence, And he that suffers! O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. Lucio. That's well said. Isabella. 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 gnarléd oak Than the soft myrtle; 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 |