you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, fhall we not revenge? if we are like you in the reft, we will refemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? revenge: If a Chriftian wrong a Jew, what fhould his fufferance be by Chriftian example? why, revenge. The villainy, you teach me, I will execute; and it fhall go hard, but I will better the inftruction.

Enter a Servant.

SERV. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and defires to speak with you both. SALAR. We have been up and down to feek him.

Enter TUBAL.

SALAN. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew. [Exeunt SALAN. SALAR. and Servant.

SHY. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? haft thou found my daughter?

TUB. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

SHY. Why there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, coft me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curfe never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now:-two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels.-I would, my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! 'would fhe were hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them?-Why, fo:-and I know not what's fpent in the fearch: Why, thou lofs upon lofs! the thief gone with fo much, and fo much to find the thief; and no fatiffaction, no revenge: nor no ill luck stirring, but

what lights o' my fhoulders; no fighs, but o' my breathing; no tears, but o' my fhedding.

TUB. Yes, other men have ill luck too; Antonio, as I heard in Genoa,―

Sur. What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck? TUB.-hath an argofy caft away, coming from Tripolis.

SHY. I thank God, I thank God:-Is it true? is it true?

TUB. I fpoke with fome of the failors that escaped the wreck.

SHY. I thank thee, good Tubal ;-Good news, good news: ha! ha!-Where? in Genoa?

TUB. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourfcore ducats.

-I fhall

SHY. Thou ftick'ft a dagger in me:never fee my gold again: Fourfcore ducats at a fitting! fourfcore ducats!

TUB. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to Venice, that fwear he cannot choose but break.

SHY. I am very glad of it: I'll plague him; I'll torture him; I am glad of it.

TUB. One of them fhowed me a ring, that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

SHY. Out upon her! Thou tortureft me, Tubal : it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkies.

7 it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor:] A turquoife is a precious ftone found in the veins of the mountains on the confines of Perfia to the east, subject to the TarAs Shylock had been married long enough to have a daughter

tars.

TUB. But Antonio is certainly undone.

SHY. Nay, that's true, that's very true: Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, befpeak him a fortnight before: I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandize I will: Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our fynagogue; go, good Tubal; at our fynagogue, Tubal. [Exeunt.

grown up, it is plain he did not value this turquoise on account of the money for which he might hope to fell it, but merely in respect of the imaginary virtues formerly afcribed to the ftone. It was faid of the Turkey-ftone, that it faded or brightened in its colour, as the health of the wearer increased or grew leís. To this B. Jonfon refers, in his Sejanus:

"And true as Turkife in my dear lord's ring,
"Look well, or ill with him."

Again, in The Mufes Elyfium, by Drayton:

"The turkeffe, which who haps to wear,

"Is often kept from peril."

Again, Edward Fenton in Secrete Wonders of Nature, bl. 1. 4to. 1569. "The Turkeys doth move when there is any perill prepared to him that weareth it." P. 51. b.

But Leah (if we may believe Thomas Nicols, fometimes of Jesus College in Cambridge, in his Lapidary, &c.) might have prefented Shylock with his Turquoife for a better reafon; as this stone" is likewife faid to take away all enmity, and to reconcile man and wife."

Other fuperftitious qualities are imputed to it, all of which were either monitory or prefervative to the wearer.

The fame quality was supposed to be refident in coral. So, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"You may fay jet will take up a ftraw, amber will make one fat,

"Coral will look pale when you be fick, and chrystal will ftanch blood."

Thus Holinfhed, fpeaking of the death of King John: " And when the king fufpected them (the pears) to be poifoned indeed, by reafon that fuch precious stones as he had about him caft forth a certain fweat as it were bewraeing the poifon," &c. STEEVENS,

SCENE II.

Belmont. A Room in Portia's Houfe.

Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and Attendants. The cafkets are fet out.

POR. I pray you, tarry; pause a day or two,
Before you hazard; for, in choofing wrong,
I lofe your company; therefore, forbear a while:
There's fomething tells me, (but it is not love,)
I would not lofe you; and you know yourself,
Hate counfels not in fuch a quality:

But left you should not understand me well,
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,)
I would detain you here some month or two,
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forfworn;
So will I never be: fo may you miss me;
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forfworn. Befhrew your eyes,
They have o'er-look'd me, and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,-
Mine own, I would fay; but if mine, then yours,
And fo all yours: O! thefe naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights;
And fo, though yours, not yours.-Prove it fo,

8 And fo all yours:] The latter word is here ufed as a diffyllable. In the next line but one below, where the fame word occurs twice, our author, with his ufual licence, employs one as a word of two fyllables, and the other as a monofyllable. MALONE.

9 And fo, though yours, not yours.—Prove it fo,] It may be more grammatically read:

And fo though yours I'm not yours. JOHNSON.

Let fortune go to hell for it,-not I.'

I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time;
To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.

BASS.

Let me choose; For, as I am, I live upon the rack.

POR. Upon the rack, Baffanio? then confefs What treafon there is mingled with your love.

BASS. None, but that ugly treason of mistrust, Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love: There may as well be amity and life

'Tween fnow and fire, as treafon and my love.

POR. Ay, but, I fear, you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak any thing.

BASS. Promise me life, and I'll confefs the truth.
POR. Well then, confess, and live.

BASS.
Confefs, and love,
Had been the very fum of
fum of my confeffion:
O happy torment, when my torturer

Let fortune go to hell for it,not I.] The meaning is, "If the worst I fear fhould happen, and it fhould prove in the event, that I, who am juftly yours by the free donation I have made you of myfelf, fhould yet not be yours in confequence of an unlucky choice, let fortune go to hell for robbing you of your just due, not I for violating my oath." HEATH.

3

to peize the time;] Thus the old copies. To peize is from pefer, Fr. So, in K. Richard III :

"Left leaden flumber peize me down to-morrow." To peize the time, therefore, is to retard it by hanging weights upon it. The modern editors read, without authority,-piece.

STEEVENS.

To peize, is to weigh, or balance; and figuratively, to keep in fufpence, to delay.

So, in Sir P. Sydney's Apology for Poetry:-" not fpeaking words as they changeably fall from the mouth, but perzing each fillable."

HENLEY.