c.ever, sprightly, and voluble persons as any one need desire to be with, the chief difference between them being, that the former lets his tongue run on from good impulses, the other makes it do so for good ends. If not so wise as Bassanio, they are more witty, and as much surpass him in strength, as they fall short in beauty, of character. It is observable that of the two Gratiano is the more heedless and headstrong in thought and speech, with less subjection of the individual to the well-ordered forms of social decorum so that, if he behave not quite so well as the others, he gives livelier proof that what good behaviour he has is his own; a growth from within, not an impression from without. It is rather remarkable that one so talkative and rattle-tongued should there. withal carry so much weight of meaning; and he often seems less sensible than he is, because of his trotting volubility. But he has no wish to be "reputed wise for saying nothing;" and he often makes a merit of talking nonsense when, as is often the case, nonsense is the best sort of sense; being willing to incur the charge of folly, provided he can thereby add to the health and entertainment of his friends.

Lorenzo and Jessica are in such a lyrical state of mind as naturally keeps their characters in the background. Both are indeed overflowing with beauty and sweetness of mind, but more as the result of nuptial inspiration than of inherent qualities; though the instrument had need be pretty well tuned and delicately strung, to give forth such tones, be it breathed upon never so finely. Jessica has been well described as a "child of nature, hurried along by the deep enthusiasm of Eastern love and passion." Her elopement in itself and its circumstances forces us to the alternative, that either she is a very bad child, or Shylock a very bad father; and there are enough other things to persuade us of the latter, though not in such sort but that some share of the reproach falls upon her. For if a woman have so bad a home as to justify her in thus deserting and robbing it, it can scarce be but that the qualities of its atmosphere will have wrought themselves somewhat into her temper and character; so that she will seem without spot or blemish only while in a condition to move our pity. Jessica's lover stands fair in our sight, negatively, because he does nothing unhandsome, positively, because he has such good men for his friends. It is a curious instance of the Poet's subtlety, that what they thus do for him should be in some measure done for her by such a person as Launcelot Gobbo. The better parts of Jessica and the Clown are reflected from each other: we think the bettor of her that she has kindled something of poetry in such a clod, and of him, that he is raised above himself by the presence of such an object. And her conduct is further justified to our feelings by the odd testimony he furnishes to her father's badness;— a testimony which, though of no great weight in itself, goes far to confirm all that is testified against him by others. We see that

the Jew is much the same at home as in the Rialto; that let nim be where he will, it is his nature to snarl and bite. Such, in one View of the matter, is the dramatic propriety of this queer being his part, though often scouted as a hindrance by such critics as can see but one thing at a time, is necessary to the completeness of the work; since without him we could not so well have sufficient knowledge either of Jessica or of her father. But though his main title to the place he fills be on account of others, still he has a value in himself, quite independently of such reference; his own personal rights enter into the purpose of his introduction, and he carries in himself a part of the reason why he is so and not otherwise for Shakespeare seldom if ever brings in a person merely for the sake of others. A mixture, indeed, of conceit and drollery, and hugely wrapped up in self, yet he is by no means a commonplace buffoon, but stands firm and secure in the sufficiency of his original stock. His elaborate nonsense, his grasping at a pan without catching it, yet feeling just as grand as if he did, is both ludicrous and natural: his jokes, to be sure, are mostly failures; nevertheless they are laughable, because he dreams not but that they succeed. Thus, as hath been well said, "he proves that the poverty of a jest may be enriched in a fool's mouth, owing to the complacency with which he deals it out; and because there are few things that provoke laughter more than feebleness in a great attempt at a small matter." In Launcelot, moreover, the principle and mother element of the whole piece runs out in broad humour and travestie; he exhibits under an intensely comic form the general aspect of surrounding humanity; his character being at the same time an integral part in that varied structure of human life, which it is the genius and office of the Romantic Drama to represent. On many accounts, indeed, he might not be spared.

As

In Portia Shakespeare seems to have tried what he could do in working out a scheme of an amiable, intelligent, and accomplished woman. And the result is a fine specimen of beautiful nature enhanced by beautiful art. Eminently practical in her tastes and turn of mind, full of native, homebred sense and virtue, she unites therewith something of the ripeness and dignity of a sage, a rich, mellow eloquence, and a large, noble discourse, the whole being tempered with the best grace and sensibility of womanhood. intelligent, therefore, as the strongest, she is at the same time as feminine as the weakest, of her sex. she talks like a poet and a philosopher, yet, strange to say, she talks for all the world just like a woman. Nothing can be more fitting and well-placed than her demeanour, now bracing her speech with grave maxims of moral and practical wisdom, now unbending her mind in playful sallies of wit, or innocent, roguish banter. Partly from condition, partly from culture, she has grown to live more in the understanding than in the affections; for which cause she is a little more selfconscious than we exactly like ; yet her character is scarce the less

lovely on that account: she talks considerably indeed of herself, yet always so becomingly that we hardly wish she would choose any other subject; for we are rather agreeably surprised, that one so fully aware of her gifts should still bear them so meekly. Mrs. Jameson, with Portia in her eye, intimates plainly enough that she considers Shakespeare about the only artist, except nature, who could make women wise without turning them into men. And it may be worth remarking, that honourable as the issue of her course at the trial would be to a man, she shows no unwomanly craving to be in the scene of her triumph as she goes there prompted i v the feelings and duties of a wife, for the saving of her husband s honour and peace of mind, so she gladly leaves when these causes no longer bear in that direction. Being to act for once the part of a man, it would seem as though she could scarce go through the undertaking without more of self-confidence than were becoming in a woman; and the student may find plenty of matter for thought in the skill wherewith the Poet has managed to prevent such an impression. It is no drawback upon Portia's strength and substantial dignity of character, that her nature is all overflowing with romance rather, this it is that glorifies her and breathes enchantment about her; it adds that precious seeing to the eye which conducts her to such winning beauty and sweetness of deportment, and makes her the "rich-souled" creature that Schlegel so aptly describes her to be.

Shylock is a standing marvel of power and scope in the dramatic art; at the same time appearing so much a man of nature's making, that we scarce know how to look upon him as the Poet's workmanship. In the delineation Shakespeare had no less a task than to inform with individual life and peculiarity the broad, strong outlines of national character in its most fallen and revolting state. Accordingly Shylock is a true representative of his nation; wherein we have a pride which for ages never ceased to provoke hostility, but which no hostility could ever subdue; a thrift which still invited rapacity, but which no rapacity could ever exhaust; and a weakness which, while it exposed the subjects to wrong, only deepened their hate, because left them without the means or the hope of redress. Thus Shylock is a type of national sufferings, sympathies, and antipathies. Himself an object of bitter insult and scorn to those about him; surrounded by enemies whom he is at once too proud to conciliate and too weak to oppose; he can have no life among them but money; no hold on them but interest; no feeling towards them but hate; no indemnity out of them but revenge. Such being the case, what wonder that the elements of national greatness became congealed or petrified into malignity? As avarice was the passion in which he mainly lived, of course the Christian virtues that thwarted this were the greatest wrong that could be done him.

With these strong national traits are interwoven personal traits

equally strong. Thoroughly and intensely Jewish, he ist more a Jew than he is Shylock. In his hard, icy intellectuality, and his "dry, mummy-like tenacity" of purpose, with a dasi, now and then of biting sarcastic humour, we see the remains of a great and noble nature, out of which all the genial sap of humanity has been pressed by accumulated injuries. With as much elasticity of mind as stiffness of neck, every step he takes but the last is as firm aз the earth he treads upon. Nothing can daunt, nothing disconcert him; remonstrance cannot move, ridicule cannot touch, obloquy cannot exasperate him when he has not provoked them, he has been forced to bear them; and now that he does provoke them, he is proof against them. In a word, he may be broken; he cannot be bent.

These several elements of character are so complicated in Shylock, that we cannot distinguish their respective influence. Even his avarice has a smack of patriotism. Money is the only defence of his brethren as well as himself, and he craves it for their sake as much as his own; feels indeed that wrongs are offered to them in him, and to him in them. Antonio has scorned his religion, thwarted him of usurious gains, insulted his person: therefore he hates him as a Christian, himself a Jew; as a lender of money gratis, himself a griping usurer; as Antonio, himself Shylock. Moreover, who but a Christian, one of Antonio's faith and fellowship, has stolen away his daughter's heart, and drawn her into revolt, loaded with his ducats, and his precious, precious jewels? Thus his religion, his patriotism, his avarice, his affection, all concur to stimulate his enmity; and his personal hate, thus regnforced, for once overcomes his avarice, and he grows generous in the prosecution of his design. The only reason he will vouchsafe for taking the pound of flesh is, "if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge ;"-a reason all the more satisfactory to him, forasmuch as those to whom he gives it can neither allow nor refute it and until they can rail the seal from off his bond, all their railings are but a foretaste of the revenge he seeks. In his eagerness to taste that morsel sweeter to him than all the luxuries of Italy, his recent afflictions, the loss of his daughter, his ducats, his jewels, and even the precious ring given him by his departed wife, all fade from his mind. In his cool, resolute, unrelenting, imperturbable hardness at the trial, there is something that makes our blood to tingle. It is the sublimity of malice! We feel, and tremble as we feel, that the yearnings of revenge have silenced all other cares and all other thoughts. Fearful, however, as is his malignity, he comes not off without moving our pity. In the very act whereby he thinks to avenge h's own and his brethren's wrongs, the national curse overtakes him in standing up for the law he has but strengthened his ene. mies' hands, and sharpened their weapons against himself; and the terrible Jew sinks at last into the poor, pitiable heart-broker Shylock.

The Merchant of Venice is justly distinguished among Shake speare's dramas for the beauty of particular scenes and passages For descriptive power, the opening scene between the Merchant and his friends is not easily rivalled, and can hardly fail to live ir. the memory of any one that has an eye for such things. Equally fine in its way is the scene between Tubal and Shylock, where the latter is so torn with the struggle of conflicting passions, his heart now sinking with grief at the account of his fugitive daughter's expenses, now leaping with malignant joy at the report of Antoio's losses at sea. The trial scene, with its tugging vicissitudes of passion and its hush of terrible expectation, now ringing with the Jew's sharp, spiteful snaps of malice, now made musical with Portia's strains of eloquence, now holy with Antonio's noble gushes of friendship, is hardly surpassed tragic power any where; and as it forms the catastrophe, so it concentrates the interest of the whole play. Scarce inferior in its kind is the night scene of Lorenzo and Jessica, bathed as it is in love, moonlight, " touches of sweet harmony," and soul-lifting discourse, followed by the grave moral reflections of Portia, as she approaches her home. and sees its lights, and hears its music. The bringing in this passage of ravishing lyrical sweetness, so replete with the most soothing and tranquillizing effect, close upon the intense dramatic excitement of the preceding scene, is such a transition as we may find nowhere but in Shakespeare, and shows his unequalled mastery over the mind's capacities of delight. The affair of the rings, with the harmless perplexities growing out of it, is a well-managed device for letting the mind down from the tragic height, whereon it lately stood, to the merry conclusion which the play requires. Critics, indeed, may easily quarrel with this merry after-piece; but it stands justified by the tribunal to which criticism itself must bow, the spontaneous feelings of all such as are willing to be made happier and wiser, without beating their brains about the how and wherefore.

Before leaving this fruitful theme, it may be worth the while to consider, for a moment, what a wide diversity of materials are here drawn up and moulded into unity of life and impression. Ben Jonson, in his preface to The Alchemist, sets it down as "the disease of the unskilful to think rude things greater than polished, or scattered more numerous than composed." A principle very well illustrated in the play before us. One can hardly realize how many things are there brought together, they are ordered in such perfect concert and harmony; the greatness of the work being thus hidden in its fine proportions. In many of the Poet's dramas we are surprised at the great variety of character: here, besides this, we have also a remarkable variety of plot; and, admirable as may be the skill displayed in the characters, severally considered the interweaving of so many several plots, without the least con fusion or embarrassment, evinces a still higher mastership. For many and various as are the forms and aspects of life, they al