STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, like A Midsummer Night's Dream, was first printed in 1600; and it had a further similarity to that play from the circumstance of two editions appearing in the same year-the one bearing the name of a publisher, Thomas Heyes, the other that of a printer, J. Roberts. The edition of Heyes is printed by J. Roberts; and it is probable that he, the printer, obtained the first copy. On the 22nd of July, 1598, the following entry was made in the books of the Stationers' Company :-"James Robertes. A booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce, or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce. Provided that yt bee not prynted by the said James Robertes or anye other whatsoever, without lycence first had of the right honourable the Lord Chamberlen." The title of Roberts' edition is very circumstantial :-"The excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreme cruelty of Shylocke the Jew towards the said Merchant, in cutting a just pound of his flesh. And the obtaining of Portia by the choyce of three Caskets. Written by W. Shakespeare." On the 28th of October, 1600, Thomas Haies enters at Stationers' Hall, book of the Merchant of Venyce." The edition of Heyes is by no means identical with that of Roberts; but the differences are not many. In the title page of that edition we have added:"As it hath beene divers times acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his Servants." The play was not reprinted till it appeared in the folio of 1623. In that edition there are a few variations from the quartos, which we have indicated in our notes. All these editions present the internal evidence of having been printed from correct copies.

"The

The Merchant of Venice is one of the plays of Shakspere mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598, and it is the last mentioned in his list. From the original entry at Stationers' Hall, in 1598, providing that it be not printed without licence first had of the Lord Chamberlain, it may be assumed that it had not then been acted by the Lord Chamberlain's servants. We know, however, so little about the formalities of licence that we cannot regard this point as certain. Malone considers that a play called the 'Venesyan Comedy,' which it appears from Henslowe's Manuscripts was acted in 1594, was The

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Merchant of Venice; and he has therefore assigned it to 1594. He supports this by one solitary conjecture. In Act III. Portia exclaims :

"He may win;

And what is music then? then music is

Even as the flourish when true subjects bow

To a new-crowned monarch."

Malone considers that this alludes to the coronation of Henry IV. of France, in 1594. Chalmers would fix it in 1597, because, when Antonio says,—

"Nor is my whole estate

Upon the fortune of this present year,"—

he alludes to 1597, which was a year of calamity to merchants. Surely this is laborious trifling. We know absolutely nothing of the date of The Merchant of Venice beyond what is furnished by the entry at Stationers' Hall, and the notice by Meres.

SUPPOSED SOURCE OF THE PLOT.

STEPHEN GOSSON, who, in 1579, was moved to publish a tract, called 'The School of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, players, jesters, and such like caterpillars of the commonwealth,' thus describes a play of his time:-"The Jew, shewn at the Bull, representing the greedyness of worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers." Mr. Skottowe somewhat leaps to a conclusion that this play contains the same plot as The Merchant of Venice:-"The loss of this performance is justly a subject of regret, for, as it combined within its plot the two incidents of the bond and the caskets, it would, in all probability, have thrown much additional light on Shakspeare's progress in the composition of his hi_hly-finished comedy." As all we know of this play is told us by Gosson, it is rather bold to assume that it combined the two incidents of the bond and the caskets. The combination of these incidents is perhaps one of the most remarkable examples of Shakspere's dramatic skill. "In the management of the plot," says Mr. Hallam, "which is sufficiently complex without the slightest confusion or incoherence, I do not conceive that it has been surpassed in the annals of any theatre." The rude dramatists of 1579 were not remarkable for the combination of incidents. It was probably reserved for the skill of Shakspere to bring the caskets and the bond in juxtaposition. He found the incidents far apart, but it was for him to fuse them together. We cannot absolutely deny Mr. Douce's conjecture that the play mentioned by Gosson might have furnished our poet with the whole of the plot; but it is certainly an abuse of language to say that it did furnish him, because the Jew shown at the Bull deals with "worldly choosers," and the " bloody minds of usurers." We admit that the coincidence is curious. Whatever might have been the plot of the 'Jew' mentioned by Gosson, the story of the bond was ready to Shakspere's hand, in a ballad to which Warton first drew attention. He considers that the ballad was written before The Merchant of Venice, for reasons which we shall subsequently point out. In the mean time we reprint this curious production from the copy in Percy's 'Reliques: '

A NEW SONG.

SHEWING THE CRUELTIE OF GERNUTUS, A Jewe, who, lENDING TO A MERCHANT AN HUNDRED CROWNS, WOULD HAVE A POUND OF HIS FLESHE, BECAUSE HE COULD NOT PAY HIM AT THE TIME APPOINTED.

THE SECOND PART.

OF THE JEW'S CRUELTIE; SETTING FORTH THE MERCIFULNESSE OF THE JUDGE TOWARDS THE MARCHANT.

To the Tune of 'Blacke and Yellow.'