GRAT. A second Daniel, a Daniel Jew! Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.

POR. Why doth the Jew pause? take thy forfeiture. SHY. Give me my principal, and let me go. BASS. I have it ready for thee; here it is. POR. He hath refused it in the open court; He shall have merely justice, and his bond. GRAT. A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel!I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. SHY. Shall I not barely have my principal ? POR. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture, To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.

SHY. I'll stay no longer question.

POR.

Tarry, Jew;
The law hath yet another hold on you.
It is enacted in the laws of Venice-
If it be proved against an alien,
That by direct or indirect attempts
He seek the life of any citizen,

The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive
Shall seize one-half his goods; the other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
And the offender's life lies in the mercy
Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice,
In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st:
For it appears by manifest proceeding,
That indirectly, and directly too,
Thou hast contriv'd against the very life
Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd
The danger formerly by me rehearsed.

Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke.

GRAT. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;

And yet thy wealth being forfeit to the state,

Thou hast not left the value of a cord;

Therefore thou must be hanged at the state's charge. DUKE. That thou shalt see the difference of our

spirit,

I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it:
For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;
The other half comes to the general state,
Which humbleness may drive into a fine.
POR. Ay, for the state-not for Antonio.
SHY. Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that:
You take
do take the prop
house when
my
That doth sustain my house; you take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.
POR. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?
GRAT. A halter gratis; nothing else.

you

ANT. So please my lord the duke, and all the court,
To quit the fine for one-half of his goods;
I am content, so he will let me have

The other half in use, to render it,
Upon his death, unto the gentleman

That lately stole his daughter:

Two things provided more,-That, for this favour, He presently becomes a Christian;

The other, that he do record a gift,

Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd,

Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.

DUKE. He shall do this; or else I do recant

The pardon that I late pronounced here.

POR. Art thou contented, Jew? what dost thou say? SHY. I am content.

POR.

Clerk, draw a deed of gift. SHY. I pray you give me leave to go from hence: I am not well; send the deed after me,

And I will sign it.

DUKE.

Get thee gone, but do it.

SHAKSPERE.

misadventure-accident

wistfully-feelingly
business-affair

-"AND this," said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet, "and this should have been thy portion," said he, "hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me.' -I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child; but 'twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his : but he did it with more true touches of nature.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with an ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time, then laid them down,-look'd at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it, held it some time in his hand, then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle,-looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh.

-

The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur among the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready as I continued sitting in the postchaise, I could see and hear over their heads.

:

-He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.

It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest lads in all Germany; but having, in one week, lost two of the eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all, and made a vow, if Heaven would not take him from him also, he would go, in gratitude, to St. Iago in Spain.

He said, Heaven had accepted the conditions, and that he had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of his journey;—and it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, and was to him as a friend.

Every body, who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern.-La Fleur offered him money.- --The mourner said he did not want it ;-it was not the value of the ass, but the loss of him. The ass, he said, he was assured, loved him;-and, upon this, he told them a long story of a mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean Mountains, which had separated them from each other three days; during which time the ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass; and that they had scarce either eaten or drunk till they met.

66

at

"Thou hast one comfort, friend,” said I, least, in the loss of thy poor beast;-I'm sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.". "Alas!" said the mourner, "I thought so when he was alive;-but now, that he is dead, I think otherwise.-I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions together have been too much for him,-they have shortened the poor creature's days, and I fear I have them to answer for."-" Shame on the world," said I to myself.

"Did we but love each other as this poor soul loves his ass,-'twould be something."

L. STERNE.

O the long and dreary winter!
O the cold and cruel winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker,
Froze the ice on lake and river;
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper,
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
Hardly from his buried wigwam1
Could the hunter force a passage;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes
Vainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none;
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,

In the snow beheld no footprints;
In the ghastly, gleaming forest
Fell, and could not rise from weakness,
Perished there from cold and hunger.
O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!

1 Wigwam-an Indian hut.