Biron. Pompey the great,-
Cost.

Your servant, and Costard.
Biron. Take away the conqueror, take
Alisander.

away

Cost. O, sir, [To NATH.] you have overthrown Alisander the conqueror! You will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds his poll-ax sitting on a close-stool, will be given to A-jax: he will be the ninth worthy. A conqueror, and afeard to speak! run away for shame, Alisander. [NATH. retires.] There, an't shall please you; foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd! He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth; and a very good bowler: but, for Alisander, alas, you see how 'tis ;-a little o'erparted:-But there are worthies a coming will speak their mind in some other sort.

Prin. Stand aside, good Pompey.

Enter HOLOFERNES arm'd, for Judas, and MOTH arm'd, for Hercules.

Hol. Great Hercules is presented by this imp, Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus, And, when he was a babe, a child, o shrimp,

Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus; Quoniam, he seemeth in minority;

Ergo, I come with this apology.

Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.

Hol. Judas I am,

Dum. A Judas!

Hot. Not Iscariot, sir.

Judas I am, ycleped Machabæus.

[Exit MOTH.

Dum. Judas Machabæus clipt, is plain Judas.
Biron. A kissing traitor :-How art thou prov'd

Judas?

Hol. Judas I am,—

Dum. The more shame for you, Judas.

Hol. What mean you, sir?

Boyet. To make Judas hang himself.

Hol. Begin, sir; you are my elder.

Biron. Well follow'd: Judas was hang'd on an elder.

Hol. I will not be put out of countenance.

Biron. Because thou hast no face.

Hol. What is this?

Boyet. A cittern head.2

Dum. The head of a bodkin.

Biron. A death's face in a ring.

Long, The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.

Boyet. The pummel of Cæsar's faulchion.
Dum. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.'
Biron. St. George's half-cheek in a brooch.4
Dum. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.

Biron. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer:
And now, forward; for we have put thee in coun-

tenance.

Hol. You have put me out of countenance.
Biron. False; we have given thee faces.
Hol. But you have out-fac'd them all.
Biron. An thou wert a hon, we would do so.
Boyet. Therefore, as he is, an ass, let him go.
And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?
Dum. For the latter end of his name.

Biron. For the ass to the Jude? give it him:-
Jud-as, away.

Hol. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.
Boyet. A light for monsieur Judas: it grows dark,
he may stumble.

This alludes to the arms given, in the old history of the Nine Worthies, to Alexander, the which did bear geules a lion or, seiante in a chayer, holding a battle-axe argent.'

2 The cittern, a musical instrument like a guitar, had usually a head grotesquely carved at the extremity of the neck and finger-board: hence these jests. 3 i. e. a soldier's powder-horn.

4 A brooch was an ornamental clasp for fastening

Prin. Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited!

Enter ARMADO arm'd, for Hector.

Biron. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.

Dum. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.

King, Hector was but a Trojan' in respect of this.
Boyet. But is this Hector?"

Dum. I think, Hector was not so clean-timber'd.
Lmg. His leg is too big for Hector.
Dum. More calf, certain.

Boyet. No; he is best indued in the small.

Biron. This cannot be Hector.

Dum. He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces. Arm. The armipotent Mars, of lances" the almighty,

Gave Hector a gift,-
Dum. A gilt nutmeg,
Biron. A lemon.

Long. Stuck with cloves.
Dum. No, cloven.

Arm. Peace.

The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;

A man so breath'd, that certain he would fight, yea
From morn till night, out of his pavilion.
am that flower,—

Dum.

Long.

That mint.

That columbine.

Arm. Sweet lord Longaville, rein thy tongue. Long. I must rather give it the rein; for it runs against Hector.

Dum. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.

Arm. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breath'd, he was a man-But I will forcess] bestow on me the sense of hearing. ward with my device: Sweet royalty, [to the Prin

[BIRON whispers COSTARD. Prin. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.

Arm. I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper.
Boyet. Loves her by the foot.

Dum. He may not by the yard.

Arm. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,Cost. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way.

Arm. What meanest thou?

Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already; 'tis yours.

Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt die.

Cost. Then shall Hector be whipp'd, for Jaquenetta that is quick by him; and hang'd, for Pompey that is dead by him.

Dum. Most rare Pompey!
Boyet. Renowned Pompey!

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great
Pompey! Pompey the huge!

Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee.
Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern
man; I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword:-I pray
you, let me borrow my arms again.

hat-bands, girdles, mantles, &c. a brooch of lead, be
cause of his pale and wan complexion, his leaden hue.
a thief. It was, however, a familiar name for any equal
5 Trojan is supposed to have been a cant term for
or inferior.

King. The extreme parts of time extremely form If this thou do deny, let our hands part;

1

MERCHANT OF VENICE

"THE

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

making some exceptions to his condemnation of drama-
tic performances, mentions among others: The Jewe
shown at the Bull, representing the greediness of workdly
choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers.-These
plays,' continues he, are good and sweete plays.'
It cannot be doubted that Shakspeare, as in other in-
stances, availed himself of this ancient piece. Mr.
Douce observes, that the author of the old play of The
Jew, and Shakspeare in his Merchant of Venice, have
not confined themselves to one source only in the con-
struction of their plot, but that the Pecorone, the Gesta
Romanorum, and perhaps the old ballad of Gernutus,
have been respectively resorted to.' It is however most
probable that the original play was indebted chiefly, if
not altogether, to the Gesta Romanorum, which co-
tained both the main incidents; and that Shakspeare
expanded and improved them, partly from his own ge-
nius, and partly as to the bond from the Pecorone,
where the coincidences are too manifest to leave any
doubt. Thus the scene being laid at Venice; the res
dence of the lady at Belmont; the introduction of the
person bound for the principal; the double infraction of
the bond, viz. the taking more or less than a pound of
flesh, and the shedding of blood, together with the after
incident of the ring, are common to the novel and the
play. The whetting of the knife might perhaps be taken
from the ballad of Gernutus. Shakspeare was likew
indebted to an authority that could not have occurred to
the original author of the play in an English form; thi
was Silvayn's Orator, as translated by Munday. From
that work Shylock's reasoning before the senate is evi-
dently borrowed; but at the same time it has been most
skilfully improved.*

THE Merchant of Venice," says Schlegel, is one of Shakspeare'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 crític. | 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 discovered the region where human feelings dwell: his morality is founded on the disbelief in goodness and magnanimity. The desire of revenging he 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 drama, 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 Pecorane 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.

It appears, from a passage in Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse, &c. 1579, that a play comprehending the distinct plots of Shakpeare's Merchant of Venice had been exhibited long before he commenced writer. Gosson,

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 Words, without date, but of the beginning of the sixteenth cen tury. 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 inc dents of the caskets.

The Pecorone was first printed in 1550 (not 1558, as erroneously stated by Mr. Steevens,) but was wren 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 Dis courses, in form of Declamations, &c. written in French by Alexander Silvayn, and Englished by L. P. (Lazarus Pyol, i. e. Anthony Munday,) London, Printed by Adam Islip, 1596." Declamation 95. Of a Jew wha would for his debt have a pound of flesh of a Christian

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

LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a Clown, Servant to Shylock. SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, OLD GOBBO, Father to Launcelot.

Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,