Magazine" in 1873, in which he declares that "Shakespeare seems to have
kept a sort of Hamlet notebook, full of Hamlet thoughts, of which 'To be
or not to be' may be taken as the type. These he was burdened with.
These did he cram into Hamlet as far as he could, and then he tossed the
others indiscriminately into other plays, tragedies and histories,
perfectly regardless of the character who uttered them." Though Mr.
Watts-Dunton sees that some of these "Hamlet thoughts" are to be found
in Macbeth and Prospero and Claudio, he evidently lacks the key to
Shakespeare's personality, or he would never have said that Shakespeare
tossed these reflections "indiscriminately into other plays."
Nevertheless the statement itself is interesting, and deserves more
notice than has been accorded to it.]

I now come to a point in the drama which at once demands and defies
explanation. In the first scene of the third act the Duke, after
listening to the terrible discussion between Isabella and Claudio, first
of all tells Claudio that "Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt"
Isabella, and then assures Claudio that to-morrow he must die. The
explanation of these two falsehoods would be far to seek, unless we take
it that they were invented simply in order to prolong our interest in
the drama. But this assumption, though probable, does not increase our
sympathy with the protagonist--the lies seem to be too carelessly
uttered to be even characteristic--nor yet our admiration of the
structure of a play that needs to be supported by such flimsy
buttresses. Still this very carelessness of fact, as I have said, is
Shakespearean; the philosophic dreamer paid little attention to the mere
incidents of the story.

The talk between the Duke and Isabella follows. The form of the Duke's
speech, with its touch of euphuistic conceit, is one which