ARMS OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY.

The Merchant of Venice is the last on a list of Shakespeare's plays given by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia, which appeared in 1598. In the same year it was entered as follows on the Register of the Stationers' Company :

"22 July, 1598, James Robertes.] A booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce, or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyse. Provided that yt bee not prynted by the said James Robertes.

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or anye other whatsoever, without lycence first had from the right honourable the Lord Chamberlen.”

The company of players to which Shakespeare belonged, and for which he wrote, were "the Lord Chamberlain's Servants;" and the above order was meant to prohibit the publication of the play until the patron of the company should give his permission. This he appears not to have done until two years later, when the following entry was made in the Register:

"28 Oct., 1600, Tho. Haies.] The booke of the Merchant of Venyce."

Soon after this entry, the play was published by Heyes, in quarto, with the following title:

The most excellent | Historie of the Merchant of Venice. | With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Iewe | towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a iust pound of his flesh: and the obtayning of Portia | by the choyse of three | chests. As it hath beene diuers times acted by the Lord | Chamberlaine his Seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. | AT LONDON,| Printed by I. R., for Thomas Heyes, and are to be sold in Paules Church-yard, at the | signe of the Greene Dragon. |

1600.

Another edition, also in quarto, was issued the same year, by Roberts, with the following title:

THE EXCELLENT | History of the Mer- | chant of Venice. With the extreme cruelty of Shylocke | the Iew towards the saide Merchant, in cut- | ting a iust pound of his flesh. And the obtaining | of Portia, by the choyse of three Caskets. | Written by W. SHAKESPEARE. | Printed by J. Roberts, 1600. The play was not reprinted until it appeared in the folio of 1623, where the text varies but little from the quartos.

There is good reason to believe that the play was written and acted as early as 1594. In Henslowe's Diary, under the date "25 of aguste 1594," we find a record of the performance of “the Venesyon comodey," which is marked ne, as

a new play. This entry probably refers to The Merchant of Venice, since in that year the company of players of which Shakespeare was a member was performing at the theatre of which Henslowe was chief manager, and probably in conjunction with his company.

It was formerly supposed that The Merchant of Venice was played before James I. on Shrove Sunday, and again on Shrove Tuesday, in 1605. The following entries appear in the Accounts of the Master of the Revels, preserved in the Audit Office, but they have been proved beyond all doubt to be forgeries:

"By his Mats Plaiers. On Shrousunday a play of the Marchant of Venis."

"By his Matis Players. On Shroutusday a play cauled the Martchant of Venis againe, comanded by the Kings Matie "

The name of "Shaxberd" as "the poet which made the play" is added in the margin opposite both entries.

II. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT.

The plot of The Merchant of Venice is composed of two distinct stories: that of the bond, and that of the caskets. Both these fables are found in the Gesta Romanorum, a Latin compilation of allegorical tales, which had been translated into English as early as the time of Henry VI. It is almost certain, however, that the immediate source from which Shakespeare derived the incidents connected with the bond was a story in Il Pecorone, a collection of tales by an Italian writer, Giovanni Fiorentino, first published at Milan in 1558, though written nearly two hundred years before. In this story we have a rich lady at Belmont, who is to be won on certain conditions; and she is finally the prize of a young merchant, whose friend, having become surety for him to a Jew under the same penalty as in the play, is rescued from the forfeiture by the adroitness of the married lady, who is disguised as a

lawyer. The pretended judge receives, as in the comedy, her marriage ring as a gratuity, and afterwards banters her husband, in the same way, upon the loss of it. An English translation of Il Pecorone is known to have been extant in Shakespeare's time.

It is quite probable that some incidents connected with the bond were taken from the old ballad of Gernutus, which may be found in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. No dated edition of the ballad is known, but the best critics believe that it is older than the play, and not, as some have maintained, founded upon the play.

It is possible that the legends of the bond and the caskets had been blended by an English dramatic writer before Shakespeare began to write for the stage. Stephen Gosson, a Puritan author, in his Schoole of Abuse, published in 1579, excepts a few plays from the sweeping condemnation of his "plesaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters, and such-like caterpillers of a Commonwelth." Among these exceptions he mentions "The Jew, and Ptolome, showne at the Bull; the one representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and the bloody minds of usurers; the other very lively describing howe seditious estates with their owne devises, false friends with their owne swoords, and rebellious commons in their owne snares, are overthrowne." We have no other knowledge of this play of The Few; but the nationality of its hero and the double moral, agreeing so exactly with that of The Merchant of Venice, render it probable that the plots of the two dramas were essentially the same; and that Shakespeare in this instance, as in others, worked upon some rough model already prepared for him. The question, however, is not of great importance. As Staunton remarks, "Be the merit of the fable whose it may, the characters, the language, the poetry, and the sentiment are his, and his alone. To no other writer of the period could we be indebted for the charming combination of womanly grace, and dignity, and playfulness, which is

found in Portia ; for the exquisite picture of friendship be tween Bassanio and Antonio; for the profusion of poetic beauties scattered over the play; and for the masterly delineation of that perfect type of Judaism in olden times, the character of Shylock himself.”

III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY.

[From Schlegel's "Lectures on Dramatic Literature."*]

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most perfect works: popular to an extraordinary degree, and calculated to produce the most powerful effect on the stage, and at the same time a wonder of ingenuity and art for the reflecting critic. Shylock the Jew is one of the inimitable masterpieces of characterization which are to be found only in Shakespeare. It is easy for both poet and player to exhibit a caricature of national sentiments, modes of speaking, and gestures. Shylock, however, is everything but a common Jew: he possesses a strongly marked and original individuality, and yet we perceive a light touch of Judaism in every thing he says or does. We almost fancy we can hear a slight whisper of the Jewish accent even in the written words, such as we sometimes still find in the higher classes, notwithstanding their social refinement. In tranquil moments, all that is foreign to the European blood and Christian sentiments is less perceptible, but in passion the national stamp comes out more strongly marked. All these inimitable niceties the finished art of a great actor can alone properly express. Shylock is a man of information, in his own way even a thinker, only he has not discovered the region where human feelings dwell; his morality is founded on the disbelief in goodness and magnanimity. The desire to avenge the wrongs and indignities heaped upon his nation is, after avarice, his strongest spring of action. His hate is naturally directed chiefly

* From Black's translation, with a few verbal changes. I have not had the opportunity of comparing it with the original German.