service and was known to the peasantry as Madame, Jj the ruinous fine at length levied on theirs and the adfrom a certain stateliness of manner, tempered with extreme urbanity.

THE POET'S PRAYER.
(A SKETCH.)

AMICITLE SHAKSPEARIANE.

No. II.

No

rationale of his sorrow.

the most secret chambers of his heart; he has minutely observed the workings of his inner being scrutinized every wheel and pinion of his spiritua machinery; and yet he has utterly failed to discover the latent cause of his deep depression. He is the subject of such strange pensiveness, such inexplicable despondency, that the phenomena of his own consciousness are, to him, an insoluble enigma. He knows not whence his feelings come, nor whither they go. He tries to seize them, but they evade him; their secret cannot be stolen; they are shadowy, dim, and fantastical. To himself he is a riddle-a knot that cannot be untied-a hieroglyphic without a cipher. It is not hazardous speculations in business, fortuitous ventures in trade, that have produced this invincible dejection, this perpetual prostration of spirits, for he is prosperous and wealthy; his ships are at sea, no doubt, but his fortunes are not

It is universally acknowledged that the most || springs of his sadness; he cannot penetrate the powerful, original, and finished creation in "The He has searched through Merchant of Venice" is Shylock, the Jew. Shakspeare never attempted a more difficult, and never produced a more perfect, portrait. The conception is unique, the execution absolutely faultless. thing can be added, nothing can be subtracted, without destroying the beauty of the whole. In the group of characters, therefore, in this play, Shylock stands distinctly out in the foreground, and immediately arrests the eye of the critic. But as darkness is the essential hue of his mind, motives, and actions, light must be introduced to render that darkness visible. Hence the character of Antonio and his friends. The Jew slowly drags himself along upon the Rialto, morbid, sullen, isolated, and alone, divorced from all the nobler sympathies of humanity, in league with avarice, and sternly concentrating upon his own aggrandisement all the resources of his shrewd, astute, and penetrating intellect. The Christian appears surrounded by a generous band of devoted" in one bottom trusted." He is, simply, sad, befriends, who regard him as the centre around which their affectious disinterestedly revolve; the source of that secret influence that binds them with delicious power to himself and to one another. He is loveable, and he is loved; he deserves friends, and he possesses them; he is a real man, and both gives and receives the humanities that confirm the history of an Eden past, and the prophecy of a Paradise to come. Let us evolve the contrast, by contemplating the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio.

cause he is not merry; he is melancholy, because he is not joyous; he is mournful, because he is not happy. This reveals a temperament peculiar to spirits of the highest order. In them, frequently, there is a buoyancy, elasticity, and elevation, of which they can give no account; and a profound, intense, abiding sadness, which they cannot understand. Height is to depth as depth is to height. Their powers of descent are proportional to their powers of ascent. They are capable of the most extraordinary exhilaration, and of the most extraordinary depression, and this from causes which are either altogether hopelessly occult, or to them totally incognisable. They are the creatures of influences which the vulgar never feel, and which the mere philosopher never can analyse. Endowed with the most exquisite and refined sensibilities, the most noble and disinterested affections, the most sublime and exalted sentiments, they move in a

Shakspeare's ideal of amity was partially developed in Valentine, the subject of our last paper. The genius that animated him must now pass into the soul of another, that, by exhibiting itself under different circumstances, and in a constitution of a different temperament, new traits, new shades, and new modifications may be revealed. The basis of character is now changed; but the soul of friendship remains immutable-the events are of another complexion, but the sentiments and bearing of friend-sphere of unearthly aspirations, and transcendental ship are the same. The ideal cannot be disfeatured; it must exist eternally integral and complete. Its laws must extend over the whole empire of the intellect, the will, and the actions, and never can be abrogated; therefore, when the poet attempts its realization, every successive development must be essentially harmonious and coincident with all the antecedent manifestations, however coloured by varying scenes and complex idiosyncracies. shall find, accordingly, but a new phase of the noble Valentine in the generous Antonio.

We

His first speech presents us with the key to his character:

"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."

He is oppressed with a mysterious melancholy; a cloud rests upon his spirit; he cannot divine the

hopes. They are the satellites of no luminary— the parasites of no terrestrial stem. Conversant, however, with all the exigencies of our common nature, and sensitively alive to all the joys and sorrows of human experience, they are fitted to become the most tender, considerate, benignant, and unselfish of friends. Such was Antonio; and his first interview with Bassanio will prove it.

Salarino, Salanio, and Gratiano, had been attempting, each in his own way, to discover the secret of Antonio's melancholy. They had miserably failed-not from want of love, but of perception. As they retire, Antonio mournfully says, with special reference to Gratiano

"Is that anything now ?". Bassanio replies

"Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat bid in two bushels of chaff-you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search."

Bassanio, a man of greater discernment, at once

ness.

perceives that Gratiano's gay, flippant philosophy || pecuniary supplies. He, therefore, betakes himcan never reach the deep core of his friend's sad- self again to him, confident that he will find his Antonio's feelings are beyond the knife of experience and his purse ready at his service. such a superficial anatomist. But before he can His first speech is singularly characteristic of inoffer any more probable explanation, Antonio breaks dividuals of his education, profession, and temperain withment, in similar circumstances. It is marked at once by manly frankness and timid reserve. Не freely confesses his extravagance, states the difficulties in which it had involved him, and then, as if shrinking from a direct avowal of his scheme, which implied another draught upon the resources of his friend, he preludes it with a noble acknowledgment of his obligations

"To you, Antonio,

I owe the most in money, and in love." This love, so substantial, so fruitful, so manifestly sincere, encourages him. He tells Antonio to lay bare his whole heart, to conceal nothing from him, to expose all his purposes and plans. This extreme delicacy will be still more beautifully exhibited in the next speech. Meanwhile, let us see what effect this had upon Antonio

"Well: tell me now, what lady is this same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?" Here we are presented with a feature in friendship which we formerly saw so strikingly exemplified in Valentine. Antonio is unwilling to distress his friend by proposing the irresoluble problem of his melancholy. He knows that all the sympathies and all the psychologico-therapeutical skill of which Bassanio is possessed is at his command. But he waives the subject to save the feelings of his friend. He is sad himself, but he does not wish his friend to be so. He loves him, and, therefore, he loves to see him happy. He sinks himself, he annihilates for the moment his own heavy sorrows, that he may forward the views, and contribute to the happiness, of his friend. Hence, he immediately suggests a topic unconnected with his own concerns, but intensely interesting to Bassanio. He asks him to communicate his love-affair. Such subjects being generally regarded by friends, in their intercourse with one another, as affording matter Mark the singular generosity of Antonio's chafor amicable banter and agreeable levity, the self- racter, the anxiety he feels to inspire his friend with sacrificing spirit of Antonio is all the more remark-perfect confidence. From the tenor of the last words able in introducing such a theme. It must have cost him no small effort to raise himself at once from the sombre and shadowy depths of constitutional sadness to the position of a sympathetic listener and counsellor to a somewhat giddy, though generous youth, intoxicated with a wild and romantic passion. This enhances our estimate of his principles, and the native kindness and amiability of his heart. Bassanio, thus encouraged, opens his case in the following terms:

""Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,

How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance;
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is to come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most in money and in love;
And, from your love, I have a warranty
To unburden all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe."

Bassanio, as we afterwards learn, is a soldier, a scholar, and a gentleman. Stimulated by the bounding vitality, and misled by the heated illusions, of youth; possessed of a frank, liberal, and genial disposition, and exposed to all the seductive influences by which men of his class and station are

"I pray you," says he, "good Bassanio, let me know it;
And, if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assured,
My purse, my person, my extremest means
Lie all unlocked to your occasions."

of Bassanio's speech, we perceive that some pecuniary favours were involved in the scheme. He knew his refined sensibilities, and he therefore, in the most fervent and energetic manner, assures him of his constant love and esteem, avows his readiness to assist him in every possible way, and, by mentioning distinctly his "purse," along with his person," he seeks at once to remove his scruples, and induce an immediate confession. Still Bassanio is shy, and avoids a distinct acknowledgment of his scheme :

(6

"In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
The self-same way, with more advised watch
To find the other forth; and, by advent'ring both,
I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof
Because what follows is pure innocence.

I owe you much: and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt
As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
Or bring your latter hazard back again,
And thankfully rest debtor for the first."

Bassanio here shirks the main point. He cannot bring himself to make a positive statement, but endeavours, by an apt and delicate allusion, to convey to Antonio some idea of the general drift of his wishes.

Antonio, surprised at his friend's singular diffigenerally surrounded, he has imprudently contract-dence and reserve, and half offended at his indirected expensive habits, and their invariable concomi- ness and obliquity, replies, with warmthtant, considerable debt. Convinced of the impropriety and folly of his conduct, he has resolved to retrace his steps, and extricate himself, by all honourable means, from his heavy liabilities. Placed in such perplexing circumstances, he needs a counsellor, a friend, Antonio, the wealthy merchant, has often assisted him, both by judicious advice and |

"You know me well, and herein spend but time
To wind about my love with circumstance;
And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong,
In making question of my uttermost,
Than if you had made waste of all I have.
Then do but say to me what I should do-
That in your knowledge may by me be done-
And I am press'd unto it; therefore, speak!"

rich in potentia, not in esse; yet he never evinces the slightest disposition to boggle at the intentions of his friend. "If he really be in want of money, though I have it not at present, yet will I do my utmost to secure it for him," as we would say in common parlance, "by hook or by crook." When, after repeated solicitations, Bassanio is at last induced to divulge his actual wants, mark the promptitude, impelled by love, that stamps An

my fortunes are on the ocean-my exchequer is low-my storehouses are empty; but I have credit in Venice, and you shall have as much as that credit can produce. Go yourself, and see who can lend the requisite sum, and I myself will aid you in the search; and, I have little doubt, you shall get the whole amount, either for interest or for love."

Antonio, generous and affectionate, cannot bear to have his love and means questioned for a moment. He would rather that his friend should squander every farthing of his money, than betray the smallest want of confidence. His estimate of the moral and the material is just and discriminating. He can dwell with poverty in calm contentment, provided he possess the undiminished affections of his friend. Rolling in luxury and wealth, without it he would bo miser-tonio's reply:-" Thou knowest, Bassanio, that all able. He has a heart large, expansive, and capacious, which cannot be satisfied unless the deep current of another's love perpetually flow into, and circulate around it. As a man of fortune, he feels what men of intellect, as well experience, that no earthly possessions, no amount of worldly prosperity, can compensate the absence of affection. The heart is the home of happiness. Attempt to place it in the exercises of a refined and cultivated intellect in the gold and silver of an exhaustless exchequer and it is exiled. Every true and permanent sentiment of satisfaction must rise from the deep bosom of our emotive nature. Sitting amid the wrecks of fortune, and the ruins of hope, still loving and loved, we are happy. This interchange of soul with soul-this communion of spirit with spirit this concurrence of heart with heart, is the elixir of life, the panacea for the maladies of human society. What a noble lesson have we here! How fitted to heighten our admiration for that sacred relation out of which spring such elevated sentiments, such unworldly, disinterested affections! Man may be a father and a husbanda brother and a son; but unless he be a friend, there are depths in his nature unfathomed-feelings, and thoughts, and emotions, unevoked-that proclaim, with sublime emphasis, his divine origin and his glorious destiny.

Bassanio, unable to resist this last appeal, unbosoms his whole mind. He loves a fair lady; she is rich. If her hand could be secured, his improvident and reckless habits would be checked, and all his heavy liabilities at once cancelled. From the peculiar circumstances of the case, however, he will require a large sum of money. He must appear amongst a throng of princely suitors, with a retinue becoming his rank and the diguity of his pretensions. Antonio's answer to his request is quite in character with his previous developments: "Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea, Nor have I money, nor commodity To raise a present sum. Therefore, go forthTry what my credit can in Venice do ; That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost, To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. Go, presently inquire, and so will I, Where money is; and I no question make, To have it of my trust, or for my sake." This passage is exquisite as a revelation of heart. Antonio knew, from the very first moment of his interview with Bassanio, what was the probable object of his visit. He also knew that his warehouses and his purse were empty. He was rich, but his all was embarked in vessels that, "like signiors and rich burghers of the flood," were, as he expected, "flying with their woven wings," to pour the treasures of all nations at his feet. He was

||

This is friendship indeed: a friendship which, in our cold and grasping age, is rarely to be found. This whole scene is full of interest, and suggestive of many profitable lessons. Before quitting it, permit us to offer a few general remarks, which naturally rise out of the subject.

Next to the sacrifice of life, the sacrifice of the purse is the surest and most unequivocal test of genuine friendship. This test becomes still more certain according to the classes and characters of the individuals to whom it is applied.

The manufacturer and the merchant who have been the laborious and successful architects of their own fortune, know well the value of money. They have risen to affluence and case by a series of wellplanned efforts and admirably-executed schemes. They have diligently calculated their expenditure and their income, their profit and their loss. They have thence adjusted their style of living to the pages of their ledger. They have seen thousands around them perishing amid the débris of their own speculations, and swept, by the strong arm of nccessity, from the gorgeous mansion to the sordid hovel. Thus they have been taught rightly to esti mate the importance of money for all the comforts and elegancies of life. If such men answer freely and munificently to the claimant necessities of an individual with whom they are on terms of friendship, then we have one of the strongest possible indices to a sincere, unselfish, permanent attachment. The test is diminished in proportion as an individual loses sight of money, as the representative of labour and industry. These considerations greatly enhance our admiration of the "Merchant of Venice." The conduct and sentiments of Bassanio are worthy of attentive study. He was of a refined and superior nature. This prevented him from presuming on the kindness and tender-heartedness of his friend. A vulgar soul would have unhesitatingly and boldly expressed in a single sentence what he wanted. Calculating on former benefits and indulgences, he would at once have solicited the requisite supplies, as if his friend wero bound to bestow them. How different with Bassanio! The deeper his obligations, the deeper his sense of them; and the more willing his friend to confer, the more reluctant is he to request. This is invariably the case with all men of right principles and right sentiments. In most

based on rectitude, and adorned with virtue. Among the vicious, the dissolute, the unprincipled, that fair offspring of refined humanity is unknown. She reserves her sunny smiles, her benignant blessings, for the sons and daughters of fidelity, purity, and love, Stand always within "the eye of honour," and friendship will shed her selectest influences and her fairest flowers around the weary pilgrimage of life,

cases there are cogent reasons for this. First, in|| asking money, which is the symbol of industry, we feel that we are preferring a request which our own improvidence, or extravagance, or thoughtlessness, or humble circumstances, have rendered necessary. We are thus conscious of a kind of degradation; and it is the knowledge of this that prompts an immediate and generous response from a true, discerning, and intelligent, friend. He knows the almost unconquerable aversion we have overcome in placing In scene III. of the first act we have Antonio ourselves in our presont position; and, therefore,|| and Bassanio's rencontre with the Jew. The asfeeling honoured by the confidence we thus impli-sumed amiability and kindness of Shylock, under citly repose in him, and, intensely anxious to relieve which he conceals a dark and bloody purpose of us from all embarrassment, he willingly, and at once, revenge, is placed in marked and startling contrast either places his means at our disposal, or, if these with the open, manly, guileless, disposition of are deficient, provides for our necessities by laying|| Antonio, and the tender, watchful, solicitous love himself under obligations to others. And, second, of Bassanio. The worst and the best of the species because the vicissitudes of life and the changes of are brought face to face. The revolting hideousfortune are so numerous, varied, and uncertain, ness of hate, and the attractive beauty of lovethat the thought of the possibility of injuring our the tortuous deceitfulness of hypocrisy, and the friend, by our inability to meet our engagements, plain straightforwardness of honesty-the despicinduces timidity and diffidence; we love our friend- ablo baseness of dissimulation, and the exalted we would not injure him for a world and should magnanimity of candour-are so exhibited as to we fail to refund at the time he requires it the produce a profound aversion for the one, and an money we have received, this would cost us more elevated attachment to the other. agony and pain than the continuaneo of our present indigence, and the perplexities and trials of res angusta domi.

This reserve, then, is exemplary and laudable. It is the mark of a superior nature,

After thus eulogising this feature in the charactor of Bassanio, it will seem strange to the reader that Antonio, whom we have represented as the model and pattern of a genuine friend, should have been displeased with it, and should have actually misconstrued it into a mark of personal indignity,

This is

According to the Shakspearian idea of friendship, Bassanio is right, and Antonio is just. paradoxical, but true. The explication lies here. The Merchant, in all probability, had never been in straitened circumstances; hence, he had never known what it was to solicit pecuniary aid from another. Judging from his own generous willingness to assist his friends, he knew nothing experimentally of the peculiar feelings that agitated a suppliant, But place himself in the position of that suppliant, and the very generosity, and dignity, and kindness of his nature, would all concur in producing that anxious diffidence, that timid reservo, which at present he cannot understand. Thus it is that our dramatist, by exhibiting similar souls in differont positions, develops the various congruent, though apparently contradictory, phases of the phenomena of friendship.

There is a remarkable expression put into the lips of Antonio, which teaches an important and never-to-be-forgotten truth. To Bassanio, he says, "If your purpose stand, as you yourself still do, within the eye of honour, then be assured my whole resources lie at your command," The foundations of a permanent amicable alliance must rest on the broad principles of honour and of truth, Remove these, and the entire structure is dissolved, the whole fabric crumbles into ruins, All that is useful and beautiful must be good, Friendship, the most useiul and beautiful of human relationships, must be

The next revelation of the nature of this friendship is presented in the interview between Salarino and Salanio in the strects of Venice. Salarino has heard a remote whisper of the loss of a fine vessel on the Goodwin Sands, Ile fears it may be Antonio's, and, animated by a generous affection, he pays this beautiful tribute to his friend :

"A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.
I saw Bassanio and Antonio part;
Bassanio told him he would make some speed
Of his return. He answered, 'Do not so—-
Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
But stay the very riping of the time;
And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me,
Let it not enter in your mind of love.
Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
As shall conveniently become you there."
And, even there, his eyes being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And, with affection wond'rous sensible,

He wrung Bassanio's hand-and so they parted." What a touching description of a farewell scene. Antonio here again displays his heroic self-denial and his manly tenderness of heart."Slubber not business for my sake. If you can thereby further your interests, I would consent even to your forgetting me for a while." The thought, however, is too much for him. It opens the fountains of tears, and, unable to say anything more, he turns aside as if to conceal his emotions-and, "with affection wond'rous sensible," wrings Bassanio's hand, and then, in silent sadness, leaves the mournful spot, Can any scene, except that miraculous one in the 4th act of this play, furnish us with a more powerful and effective antidote against the Hobbist theory of morals? Shakspeare has done more to demolish that theory than any other philosopher. We feel, we know, by the testimany of our own consciousness and experience, that such examples of disinterested, unselfish affection cannot by any means be rare. The picture elicits an immediate sentiment of sympathy and