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 is not 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 mind 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 playfully 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 splendor of Italian skies, and scenery, and art, is reproduced; their spirit lives in her imagination, and is complicated with all she does and says.

COMMENTS

By SHAKESPEAREAN SCHOLARS

ANTONIO

Anto

In Antonio, the royal merchant, who, amid all his fortune and splendor, is a victim to melancholy and spleen induced by forebodings of coming disaster, Shakespeare has certainly expressed something of his own nature. nio's melancholy is closely related to that which, in the years immediately following, we shall find in Jaques in As You Like It, in the Duke in Twelfth Night, and in Hamlet. It forms a sort of mournful undercurrent to the joy of life which at this period is still dominant in Shakespeare's soul. It leads, after a certain time, to the substitution of dreaming and brooding heroes for those men of action and resolution who, in the poet's brighter youth, had played the leading parts in his dramas. For the rest, despite the princely elevation of his nature, Antonio is by no means faultless. He has insulted and baited Shy- \ lock in the most brutal fashion on account of his faith and his blood. We realize the ferocity and violence of the mediæval prejudice against the Jews when we find a man of Antonio's magnanimity so entirely a slave to it. And when, with a little more show of justice, he parades his loathing and contempt for Shylock's money-dealings, he strangely (as it seems to us) overlooks the fact that the Jews have been carefully excluded from all other means of livelihood, and have been systematically allowed to scrape together gold in order that their hoards may always be at hand when circumstances render it convenient to plunder them. Antonio's attitude towards Shylock cannot possibly be Shakespeare's own. Shylock cannot under

stand Antonio, and characterizes him (III, iii) in the words

"This is the fool that lent out money gratis."

But Shakespeare himself did not belong to this class of fools. He has endowed Antonio with an ideality which he had neither the resolution nor the desire to emulate. Such a man's conduct towards Shylock explains the outcast's hatred and thirst for revenge.-BRANDES, William Shakespeare.

In the center of the actors in the play, in a rather passive position, stands Antonio, the princely merchant, of enviable and immense possessions, a Timon and Shylock in riches, but with a noble nature elevated far above the effects which wealth produced in these men. Placed between the generous giver and the miser, between the spendthrift and the usurer, between Bassanio and Shylock, between friend and foe, he is not even remotely tempted by the vices into which these have fallen; there is not the slightest trace to be discovered in him of that care for his wealth imputed to him by Salanio and Salarino, who in its possession would be its slaves. But his great riches have inflicted upon him another evil, the malady of the rich, who have never been agitated and tried by anything, and have never experienced the pressure of the world. He has the spleen, he is melancholy; a sadness has seized him; the source of which no one knows; he has a presentiment of some danger, such as Shakespeare always imparts to all sensitive, susceptible natures. In this spleen, like all hypochondriacs, he takes delight in cheerful society: he is surrounded by a number of parasites and flatterers, among whom there is one nobler character, Bassanio, with whom alone a deeper impulse of friendship connects him. He is affable, mild, and generous to all, without knowing their tricks and without sharing their mirth; the loquacious versatility and humor of a Gratiano is indifferent to him; his pleasure in their intercouse is passive, according to his universal apathy. His nature is quiet and is with

difficulty affected; when his property and his management leave him without anxiety, he utters a "fie, fie," over the supposition that he is in love; touched by no fault, but moved also by no virtue, he appears passionless, and almost an automaton. The position which the poet has given him in the midst of the more active characters of the piece is an especially happy one: for were he of less negative greatness he would throw all others into deep shadow; we should feel too painful and exciting a sympathy in his subsequent danger. Yet he is not allowed, for this reason, to appear quite feelingless. For in one point he shows that he shared the choler and natural feelings of others. When brought into contact with the usurer, the Jew Shylock, we see him in a state of agitation, partly arising from moral and business principles, partly from intolerance and from national religious aversion. This sense of honor in the merchant against the money-changer and usurer urges him to those glaring outbursts of hatred, when he rates Shylock in the Rialto about his "usances," calls him a dog, "foots" him, and spits upon his beard. For this he receives a lesson for life in his lawsuit with the Jew, whom, with his apathetic negligence, he allows to get the advantage over him. His life is placed in danger, and the appa. ently insensible man is suddenly drawn closer to us; he is suffering, so that high and low intercede for him; he himself petitions Shylock; his situation weakens him; the experience is not lost upon him; it is a crisis, it is the creation of a new life for him; finally, when hilor and master over Shylock, he no longer calls up his ld hatred against him, and, aroused from his apathy, he finds henceforth in Bassanio's happiness and tried friendship the source of a renovated and ennobled existence.— GERVINUS, Shakespeare Commentaries.

SHYLOCK

Shylock is a good hater; "a man no less sinned against than sinning." If he carries his revenge too far, yet