MERCHANT OF VENICE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. making some exceptions to his condemnation of drama- "THE Merchant of Venice," says Schlegel, ❝ is one of Shakspeare's most perfect works: popular to an extraordinary degree, and calenlated to produce the most powerful effect on the stage, and at the ame time a wonder of ingenuity and art for the reflecting critic. Shylock, the Jew, is one of the inconceivable masterpieces of characterisation of which Shakspeare alone furnishes us with examples. It is easy for the poet and the player to exhibit a caricature of national sentiments, modes of speaking, and gestures. Shylock, however, is every thing but a common Jew; he possesses a very determinate and original individuality, and yet we perceive a slight touch of Judaism in every thing which he says or does. We imagine we hear a sprinkling of the Jewish pronunciation in the mere written words, as we sometimes still find it in the higher classes, notwithstanding their social refinement. In tranquil situations what is foreign to the European blood and Christian sentiments is less perceivable, but in passion the national stamp appears more strongly marked. All these inimitable niceties the finished art of a great actor can alone properly express. Shylock is a man of information, even a thinker in his own way; he has only not dis covered the region where human feelings dwell: his morality is founded on the disbelief in goodness and magnanimity. The desire of revenging the oppressions and humiliations suffered by his nation is, after avarice, his principal spring of action. His hate is naturally directed chiefly against those Christians who possess truly Christian sentiments: the example of disinterested love of our neighbour seems to him the most unrelenting persecution of the Jews. The letter of the law is his idol; he refuses to lend an ear to the voice of mercy, which speaks to him from the mouth of Portia with heavenly eloquence he insists on severe and inflexible justice, and it at last recoils on his own head. Here he becomes a symbol of the general history of his unfortunate nation. The melancholy and self-neglectful magnanimity of Antonio is affectingly sublime. Like a royal merchant, he is surrounded with a whole train of noble friends. The contrast which this forms to the selfish cruelty of the usurer Shylock, was necessary to redeem the honour of human nature. The judgment scene with which the fourth act is occupied is alone a perfect dra. ma, concentrating in itself the interest of the whole. The knot is now untied, and according to the common idea the curtain might drop. But the poet was unwilling to dismiss his audience with the gloomy impressions which the delivery of Antonio, accomplished with so much difficulty, contrary to all expectation, and the punishment But as many of the incidents in the bond story of the of Shylock, were calculated to leave behind: he has Merchant of Venice have a more striking resem therefore added the fifth act by way of a musical after-blance to the first tale of the fourth day of the Pecorone piece in the play itself. The episode of Jessica, the fu of Ser Giovanni, this part of the plot was most probably gitive daughter of the Jew, in whom Shakspeare has taken immediately from thence. The story may have contrived to throw a disguise of sweetness over the na- been extant in English in Shakspeare's time, though it tional features, and the artifice by which Portia and her has not hitherto been discovered. companion are enabled to rally their newly married husbands supply him with materials." "The scene opens with the playful prattling of two lovers in a summer moonlight, 'When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees.' It is followed by soft music and a rapturous eulogy on this powerful disposer of the human mind and the world; the principal characters then make their appearance, and after an assumed dissension, which is elegantly carried on, the whole ends with the most exhilarating mirth." Malone places the date of the composition of this play in 1599, Chalmers supposed it to have been written in 1597, and to this opinion Dr. Drake gives his sanction. There are two distinct collections under the title of Gesta Romanorum. The one has been frequently printed in Latin, but never in English; there is however a manuscript version, of the reign of Henry the Sixth, among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. This collection seems to have originally furnished the story of the bond. The other Gesta has never been printed in Latin, but a portion of it has been several times printed in English. The earliest edition referred to by Warton and Doctor Farmer, is by Wynken de Worde, without date, but of the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was long doubted whether this early edition existed, but it has recently been described in the Retrospective Review. The latter part of the thirty-second history in this collection may have furnished the incidents of the caskets. The Pecorone was first printed in 1550 (not 1558, as erroneously stated by Mr. Steevens,) but was written almost two centuries before. After all, unless we could recover the old play of The Jew mentioned by Gosson, it is idle to conjecture how far Shakspeare improved upon the plot of that piece. The various materials which may have contributed to furnish the complicated plot of Shakspeare's play are to be found in the Variorum Editions, and in Mr. Douce's very interesting work. "The Orator, handling a hundred several Dia. courses, in form of Declamations, &c. written in French It appears, from a passage in Stephen Gosson's School by Alexander Silvayn, and Englished by L. P. (Laza. of Abuse, &c. 1579, that a play comprehending the dis-fus Pyol, i. e. Anthony Munday,) London, Printed by tinct plots of Shakpeare's Merchant of Venice had been exhibited long before he commenced writer. Gosson, Adam Islip, 1596," Declamation 95. Of a Jew who would for his debt have a pound of flesh of a Christian.' TUBAL, a Jew, his Friend. PORTIA, a rich Heiress. NERISSA, her Waiting-Maid. JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Jailer, Servants, and other Attendants. LAUNCELOT GOBEO, a Clown, Servant to Shylock. SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, OLD GOBBO, Father to Launcelot. the Seat of Portia, on the Continent. ACT 1. SCENE I. Venice. A Street. Enter ANTONIO, IN sooth, I know not why I am so sad; And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean; That curt'sy to them, do them reverence, Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Salar. And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks; Is sad to think upon his merchandise. Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy For you, to laugh, and leap, and say, you are merry, Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; If worthier friends had not prevented me. You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so? We two will leave you: but, at dinner time, Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it, that do buy it with much care. Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd. Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano A stage, where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one. Gra. Let me play the fool: And let my liver rather heat with wine, With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, heart cool with mortifying groans. Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice Than my Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio, My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Fye, fye! Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you are sad, 1 This enumeration of the Dramatis Personæ is by Mr. Rowe. 2 Argosies are large ships either for merchandise or war. The word has been supposed to be derived from the classical ship Argo, as a vessel eminently famous ; I love thee, and it is my love that speaks ;- and this seems the more probable from Argis being used for a ship in low Latin. 3 To rail is to lower, to let fall. From the French avaler. 4 i. e. an obstinate silence. I'll tell thee more of this another time: Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time: Gra. Well, keep me company but two years more, And she is fair, and, fairer than that word, Ant. Thou know'st, that all my fortunes are at sea; Neither have I money, nor commodity In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. Bass. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, [Exeunt. Belmont. A Room in Portia's Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick, that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better if well followed. Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The And, if it stand, as you yourself still do, Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold degree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband :--O me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father: Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations; therefore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who chooses his meaning, chooses you,) will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but your affection towards any of these princely suitors time, To wind about my love with circumstance; And out of doubt, you do me now more wrong, 1 Gear usually signifies matter, subject, or business in general. It is here, perhaps, a colloquial expression of no very determined import. It occurs again in this play, Act ii. Sc. 2: If Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear." 2 Port is state or equipage. So in the Taming of a Shrew, Act i. Sc. 1. Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead, Keep house, and port, and servants, as I should.' 3 This method of finding a lost arrow is prescribed by P. Crescentius in his treatise De Agricultura, lib. x. that are already come? Por. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description level at my affection. Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince." Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he c. xxviii. and is also mentioned in Howel's Letters, vol. i. p. 183, edit. 1655, 12mo. 4 Prest, that is, ready; from the old French word of the same orthography, now pret. 5 Formerly. 6 i. e. superfluity sooner acquires white hairs; becomes old. We still say, how did he come by it? 7 The Neapolitans, in the time of Shakspeare, were eminently skilled in all that belongs to horsemanship. 8 Colt is used for a witless heady gay youngster ; whence the phrase used for an old man too juvenile, that he still retains his colt's tooth. |