emphatically live together, as though they had but one circulation. So that the play is like a large, full-grown, fair-spreading tree, which we know is made up of divers smaller trees, all developed from and cohering in one common life.

not

Now, admitting the excellence of workmanship shown in the several plots and characters, there is a further question, namely. What business have they here? by what law or principle are they thus brought together? A question that has been handled with so much of ingenuity, or of something better, by Ulrici the German critic, as may well entitle his view to a place in this connection. He regards the whole play as a manifold working out of the principle, that all forms of right and justice, if pushed beyond a certain point, pass over into their opposites, so that extreme right becomes extreme wrong, thus verifying the old maxim, summum jus summa injuria. Which is best exemplified in Shylock, who has formal right on his side, in that he claims no more than Antonio has freely bound himself to pay; but in the strict rigid exacting of this claim he runs into the foulest wrong, because in his case justice justice unless it be tempered with mercy; that is, to keep its own nature, it must be an offshoot from the higher principle of charity. So, also, the tying up of Portia's hand to the disposal of chance, and robbing her of all share in the choice of a husband, rests ultimately on paternal right; yet this extreme right is an extreme wrong, because it might involve her in misery for life, but that chance, a lucky thought of the moment, leads to a happy result. Likewise in case of Jessica; her conduct were exceedingly wrong. but that she has good cause for it in the approved malignity of her father's temper; for justice cannot blame her for forsaking both the person and the religion of one, even though her father, whose character is so steeped in cruelty. Again, in the matter of the rings, the same principle is reflected, right and wrong being here driven to that extreme point where they pass over into each other only Portia understands or feels this truth, because her nind lives in the harmonies of things, and is not poisoned with any self-willed abstraction. Which yields a further justification of the fifth act: "it effaces the tragic impression which still lingers on the mind from the fourth act; the last vibrations of the harsh tones which were there struck here die away; in the gay and amusing trifling of love the sharp contrarieties of right and wrong are playtally reconciled." Thus while the several parts are disposed with clearness and precision, each proceeding so naturally of itself, and alongside the others, that we never lose the thread, at the same time a free living principle pervades them all, rounding them off into a perfect organic whole. And the several parts and persons not only cohere with one another, but with the general circumstances wherein they occur. Thus in the character of Portia, for example, the splendour of Italian skies, and scenery, and art, is reproduced; their spirit lives in her imagination, and is compli cated with all she does and says.

LORENZO, in love with Jessica.

SHYLOCK, a Jew.

TUBAL, a Jew, his Friend.

LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a Clown, Servant to Shylock.

OLD GOBBO, Father to Launcelot.

SALERIO, a Messenger from Venice.

LEONARDO, Servant to Bassanio.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Jailors, Servants, and other Attendants

SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Venice. A Street.

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SOLANIO.'

Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

1 In the old copies there is much confusion in the printing of these names, especially in this first scene; and as no list of the Persons is there given, we are not a little puzzled how to put them. In the folio the first stage-direction is,- Enter Antonio, Salarino, and Salanio. In the dialogue, however, the abbreviation for Salanio presently becomes Sola., which is soon changed to Sol., and then comes the stage-direction, Exeunt Salarino, and Solanio. And the names are spelt the same way in several other stage-directions; and after the first scene the abbreviated prefixes to the speeches uniformly are Sal. and Sol. So that we have abundant authority for reading Solanio instead of Salanio, as it is in most modern editions. As to the distribution of the first few speeches, we have to go partly by conjecture, the names being so perplexed as to afford no sure guidance. The last two speechos before the entrance of Bassanio, which are usually assigned to Solanio, we agree with Knight and Verplanck in transferring to Salarino, not only because he is the more lively and talkative person, but as according best with the general course of the dialogue and with his avowed wish to make Antonio merry, and especially because the quartos favor that arrangement.

H.

2

Sal. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That courtesy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Sol. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind; Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads; And every object, that might make me fear Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt, Would make me sad.

Sal. My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great might do at sea. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats; And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs,

3

To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,

Argosies are large ships either for merchandise or for war The name was probably derived from the classical ship Argo, which carried Jason and the Argonauts in quest of the golden fleece. Readers of Milton will of course remember the passage describing Satan's voyage through chaos :

"Harder beset

And more endanger'd than when Argo pass'd

Through Bosphorus betwixt the justling rocks." H. To rail is to lower, to let fall: from the French avaler. The Venetian merchants, it would seem, were much used to name their ships for Andrew Doria, the great admiral.

H.

Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,

And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,
That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?
But, tell not me: I know Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for t.
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:

Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad.
Sal. Why, then, you are in love.

Ant.

Sal. Not in love neither?

are sad,

Fie, fie!

Then let's say, you

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: Some that will evermore peep through their eyes. And laugh, like parrots at a bag-piper;

And other of such vinegar aspect,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.
Sol. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kins.

man,

Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare ye well:

We leave you now with better company.

Sal. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry, If worthier friends had not prevented me.