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I would OUT-STARE the sternest eyes that look"This reading is that of Roberts's quarto, and sustained by the sense, and by the antithesis of the next line, "out-brave." The other quarto, and the folio, have o're-stare a word not known, and giving no clear sense, though preferred in some late editions.

"beaten by his PAGE"-This is Theobald's happy emendation; adopted in all editions since his time. The old copies have "beaten by his rage." Lichas was the servant of Hercules.

SCENE II.

"Enter LAUNCELOT GOBBO"-The old copies read, "Enter the Clown alone;" and throughout the play Launcelot Gobbo is called the Clown at most of his entrances, or exits.

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"LAUNCELOT GOBBO."-"My notion of Launcelot, as I have seen him, has not been reflected from the stage. The patch is kind enough; yet he is amazingly wrapped up in self, and his soliloquies are intense on that darling subject. An obtrusive feature in his character, is the conceit in his skull that he is better than he should be. Having been called by one who did not see him, 'master,' and 'young gentleman,' he insists, over and over again, on his being young master Launcelot,' and at last styles himself the young gentleman.' All this, like every thing he says, is a mixture of vanity and drollery; on the latter he stakes his fame as a wit. Nature never formed a more egregious coxcomb; he is Lord Foppington in low life, as far as his imbecility can reach. In the same strain he talks of his 'manly spirit,' and of the Jew's having done him wrong;' as if he and his master were on an equality. No doubt his solace as a servant was, that he must, sooner or later, owing to his intrinsic merit, come to excellent fortune. He spells his fate on his palm; where, though neither coronet nor mastership offers itself to his imagination, there is something of equal value to the young animal;-eleven widows, and nine maids, is a simple coming-in for one man.' His jokes are generally failures; but, coming from him, they are laughable. When suddenly reproached with his conduct towards the Moorish woman, his answer isIt is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but if she be less than an honest woman, she is, indeed, more than I took her for.' This elaborate nonsense, this grasp at a pun without catching it, uttered in confusion, and in eagerness to shuffle out of the accusation, is as natural as it is ridiculous. It gives occasion to Lorenzo's observing How every fool can play upon the word!' which, together with what follows, may be mistaken for a self-condemnation, made at hazard, on the part of Shakespeare. By no means: the difficulty is to play well upon a word; besides, as Launcelot then and afterwards proves, 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 which provoke laughter more than feebleness in a great attempt at a small matter."-C. A. BROWN, Shak. Autobiog. P. "SCORN running with thy HEELS"-Stevens suggests the following marvellous emendation-Do not run: scorn running; withe thy heels, i. e. connect them with a withe, (a band made of osiers,) as the legs of cattle are hampered in some countries. But, in fact, "to scorn with heels" was a figurative phrase for thorough contempt. It is found also in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, as well as in other books of the age. ously applied to the running away.

It is here humor

"away!' says the fiend; for the heavens,” etc.-Some of the editors think that the line needs correction because it is not likely that the Poet would make the devil conjure Launcelot for heaven's sake. Singer observes, with better taste, that

For the heavens' was merely a petty oath. To make the fiend conjure Lanncelot to do a thing for 'heaven's sake' is a specimen of that acute nonsense' which Barrow makes one of the species of wit, and which Shakespeare was sometimes very fond of."

"being more than SAND-BLIND"-i. e. "Having an imperfect sight, as if there was sand in the eye. Gravelblind, a coinage of Launcelot's, is the exaggeration of sand-blind. Pur-blind, or pore-blind, if we may judge from a sentence of Latimer's, is something less than sand-blind :—‘They be pur-blind and sand-blind.'"KNIGHT.

"which is the way to master Jew's"-"It does not appear that the Jews (hardly used everywhere) had more need of patience in Venice than in other states. The same traditional reports against them exist there as elsewhere, testifying to the popular hatred and preju dice: but they were too valuable a part of a commercial population not to be more or less considered and taken care of. An island was appropriated to them; but they long ago overflowed into other parts of the city. Many who have grown extremely rich by moneylending have now fine palaces in various quarters; and of these, some are among the most respectable and en lightened of the citizens. The Jews who people their quarter are such as are unable to rise out of it. Its buildings are ancient and lofty, but ugly and sordid. Our synagogue' is, of course, there. It is situated on the canal which leads to Mestre. There are houses old enough to have been Shylock's, with balconies from which Jessica might have talked; and ground enough beneath, between the house and the water, for her lover to stand, hidden in the shadow, or a 'penthouse.' Hence, too, her gondola might at once start for the main land, without having to traverse any part of the city."-KNIGHT.

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"Your worship's friend, and Launcelot"-The same form of expression occurs in LOVE'S LABOUR LOSTYour servant, and Costard." It would seem, from the context, that the old man's name was Launcelot. "I beseech you, talk you of young master Launcelot," says the clown, when the old man has named himself.

"Dobbin, my PHILL-HORSE"-Phill-horse, or fillhorse, is the shaft-horse; the horse that goes between the shafts, or fills: in more modern use, the thill-horse.

"I have here a dish of doves"-Ch. A. Brown has expressed his decided conviction that some of the dramas of Shakespeare exhibit the most striking proofs that our Poet had visited Italy. The passage before us is cited by Mr. Brown as one of these proofs:-"Where did he obtain his numerous graphic touches of national manners? where did he learn of an old villager's coming into the city with 'a dish of doves' as a present to his son's master? A present thus given, and in our days too, and of doves, is not uncommon in Italy. I myself have partaken there, with due relish, in memory of poor old Gobbo, of a dish of doves, presented by the father of a servant."-Shak. Autobiog. Poems.

"More GUARDED"-i. e. More laced, or fringed; the gold-livery binding being, as Malone explains the donation, the guards of the cloth.

"Well; if any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to swear upon a book.—I shall have good fortune."

The best explanation of this passage is given by Mr. Tyrwhitt:- Launcelot, applauding himself for his success with Bassanio, and looking into the palm of his hand, (which, by fortune-tellers, is called the table.) breaks out into the following reflection:-Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to swear upon a book I shall have good fortune: that is, a table which doth not only promise, but offers to swear upon a book that I shall have good fortune."

"Go to; here's a simple LINE OF LIFE!”—“Palmistry, or chiromancy, had once its learned professors as well as astrology. The printing-press consigned the delusion to the gypsies. Chiromancy and physiognomy were once

kindred sciences. The one has passed away among other credulities belonging to ages which we call ignorant and superstitious. The other, although fashionable half a century ago, is professed by none, but, more or less, has its influence upon all. In the Pictorial edition there is a woodcut, copied from a book with which Shakespeare must have been familiar:- Briefe introductions, both natural, pleasaunte, and also delectable, unto the Art of Chiromancy, or manuel divination, and Phisiognomy: with circumstances upon the faces of the Signes. Also certain Canons or Rules upon Diseases and Sicknesses, &c. Written in ye Latin tongue by Jhon Indagine, Prieste, and now lately translated into Englishe, by Fabian Withers. For Richard Jugge, 1558.' Launcelot, as well as his betters, were diligent students of the mysteries interpreted by 'Jhon Indagine, Prieste;' and a simple or complex line of life were indications that made even some of the wise exult or tremble."

KNIGHT.

"sad OSTENT"-i. e. Ostentation; not, as now, confined to the show of vanity, but for any external show, as here, of grief or gravity.

SCENE III.

"If a Christian Do not play the knave, and get thee, I am much deceived"-The three original authorities agree in this reading, and the meaning is clearly, "if a Christian do not play the knave and obtain thee," etc. Instead of the fellow's shrewd guess at Jessica's inclinations, the editors have generally preferred the later reading of did for "do," intimating a doubt as to her birth, which the poor joke it conveys has made the popular reading.

SCENE V.

"Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT"-The old stagedirection is, "Enter Jew and his man, that was the Clowne." In a portion of this edition the stage-direction, to which this note refers, was unintentionally omitted.

66. -on BLACK MONDAY last"-Stowe, the Chronicler, thus describes the origin of this name:-"Black-Monday is Easter-Monday, and was so called on this occasion: in the 34th of Edward III., (1360,) the 14th of April, and the morrow after Easter-day, King Edward, with his host, lay before the city of Paris: which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that many men died on their horses' backs with the cold. Wherefore unto this day it hath been call Black-Monday."

"And the vile SQUEALING of the wry-neck'd fife"— Two out of the three original editions read thus. One quarto has squaling. In Shylock's mouth the former is more expressive of disgust.

"the wry-neck'd FIFE"-Commentators differ as to whether the "fife" is here the instrument or the musician. Boswell has given a quotation from "Barnaby Rich's Aphorisms," 1618, which to me seems decisive. "A fife is a wry-neckt musician, for he always looks away from his instrument." But Knight still maintains that Shakespeare intended the instrument, principally from the circumstance that the passage is an imitation of Horace, in which the instrument is decidedly meant:Prima nocte domum claude; neque in vias,

Sub cantu querulæ despice tibiæ.-(Carm. lib. iii. 7.) Knight adds that-"Independent of the internal evidence derived from the imitation, the form of the old English flute-the fife being a small flute-justifies, we think, the epithet 'wry-neck'd.' This flute was called the flute à bec, the upper part or mouth-piece resembling the beak of a bird. And this form was as old as the Pan of antiquity."

But "fife," for fifer, was undoubtedly the old phrase. "Wry-neck'd," as applied to the musician, is far more graphically descriptive, and therefore, more Shakespearian; and I have no belief in any intended imitation of Horace, for the thought was equally obvious to both poets.

"Will be worth a JEWESS' eye"--" The play upon this word alludes to the common proverbial expression, 'worth a Jew's eye.' That worth was the price which the persecuted Jews paid to avoid mutilation and death. When the rapacious King John extorted an enormous sum from the Jew of Bristol by drawing his teeth, the threat of putting out an eye would have the like effect upon other Jews. The former prevalence of the saying, is proved from the fact that we still retain it, although its meaning is now little known."--KNIGHT.

SCENE VI.

“How like a YOUNKER”—So all the old copies. It is the same word as younger and youngling.

Johnson says "Gray (dropping the allusion to the prodigal) caught from this passage the imagery of the following:"

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;

Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm ;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,

That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

"The SCARFED bark"-The vessel that is gay with

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"The Prince of Arragon intends to say-By that 'many' may be meant the foolish multitude. The fourth folio first introduced a phraseology more agreeable to our ears at present-Of the fool multitude. But change, merely for the sake of elegance, is dangerous. Many modes of speech were familiar in Shakespeare's age that are now no longer used. I have met with many examples of this kind of phraseology. So in Plutarch's 'Life of Caesar,' as translated by North, (1575,)—' He answered that these fair long-haired men made him not afraid, but the lean and whitely-faced fellows; meaning that by Brutus and Cassius.'"-MALONE.

"So begone: you are sped"-Capell misprints this line, "So farewell, sir, you are sped;" and from whence he derived the corruption it is difficult to say. Malone and others interpolate sir after "begone,' although there is no warrant for it in any of the oldest editions. It first found its way into the second folio, and certainly lessens the force of the line.

"Patiently to bear my WROTH"-Stevens says that "wroth" is here put for ruth, or misfortune; and it is thus spelled in Chapman's "Homer," and other old poets.

"Enter a MESSENGER"-"This is the stage-direction in all the old copies, for which modern editors have substituted Enter a Servant.' It is clear that he was not a mere servant, not only from the language put into his mouth, but because, when he asks, Where is my lady?' Portia replies. Here; what would my lord?' The messenger was a person of rank attending on Portia."— COLLIER.

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ACT III.-SCENE I.

“— KNAPPED ginger"—i. e. Snapped or broke ginger. "Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise," etc.

"The turquoise is a well-known precious stone, found in the veins of the mountains on the confines of Persia to the east. In old times its value was much enhanced by the magic properties attributed to it in common with other precious stones, one of which was that it faded or brightened its hue as the health of the wearer increased or grew less. This is alluded to by Ben Jonson in his Sejanus:'—

And true as turkise in my dear lord's ring,

Look well or ill with him.

Other virtues were also imputed to it, all of which were either monitory or preservative to the wearer. Thomas Nicols, in his translation of Anselm de Boot's 'Lapidary,' says, this stone is likewise said to take away all enmity, and to reconcile man and wife.' This quality may have moved Leah to present it to Shylock. It is evident that he valued it more for its imaginary virtues, or as a memorial of his wife, than for its pecuniary worth." STEVENS.

"—a wilderness of monkeys"—"What a fine Hebraism (says Hazlitt) is implied in this expression!"

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Let fortune go to hell for it,-not I.” The meaning here is "If the worst I fear should happen, and it should prove in the event that I, who am justly yours by the free donation I have made you of myself, should yet not be yours in consequence of an unlucky choice, let fortune go to hell for robbing you of your just due, not I for violating my oath."-HEATH. - but 'tis to PEIZE the time"-To peize is to poise, weigh, or balance; and figuratively, to keep in suspense, or to delay. Marlowe uses the word in the sense of weighed:

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For from the earth to heaven is Cupid raised, Where fancy is in equal balance peized. "Fancy" here, as often in SHAKESPEARE, is synonymous with love.

"Reply, reply"-These words, which in this edition, as in those of Knight and that of Collier, are printed as part of the song, were considered by Johnson to stand in the old copies as a marginal direction; and thus, from Johnson's time, in most of the editions the line has been suppressed. In all the old copies the passage is printed thus, in Italic type—

How begot, how nourished. Replie, replie. The reply is then made; and, probably, by a second voice. We agree with Knight that "The mutilation of the song, in the belief that the words were a stage

direction, is one of the most tasteless corruptions of the many for which the editors of SHAKESPEARE are answerable."

"whose hearts are all as false

As stairs of sand," etc.

The comparison refers to the difficult ascent of any sandy elevation giving way under the feet, and like other transient colloquial comparisons, is not meant to be carried out into particulars. The old spelling of stairs was staiers, as in the quartos, or stayers, as in the folio. Knight retains the folio spelling in his text, as giving the meaning of "bulwarks of sand"-an assumption of strength without reality.

"And these assume but valour's EXCREMENT"-The last word is used, as in HAMLET, WINTER'S TALE, and the COMEDY OF ERRORS, in its derivative sense, from excresco, for every thing growing or proceeding from the body.

"Thus ornament is but the GUILED shore"-For guileful, the participle used adjectively, as was frequent in the poetic language of Elizabeth's age. Thus we find, in OTHELLO, "delighted beauty" for delightful beauty.

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Thy PALENESS moves me more than eloquence"— Many of the later editors, adopting Warburton's conjecture, read, "thy plainness;" but the early editions all read "paleness," and this epithet is considered as peculiarly appropriate to lead, in the writers of the sixteenth century. "Paleness like lead," and similar phrases, may be found in Skelton and others.

The chief recommendation to the proposed change is that silver has just been called "pale," and some other epithet seems now required. It is probably merely the carelessness of rapid composition-such repetitions of words being one of the most frequent blemishes in all writings, which subsequent revisions generally remove. Yet if, as Malone suggests, a strong emphasis is laid on thy, so as to contrast the paleness of lead with that of silver, no amendment will be wanted. But if an amendment be required, I prefer Farmer's alterationleaving "paleness" to stand, and changing "pale and common drudge" to stale and common, as applied to silver.

"In measure RAIN thy joy"-It may be doubted whether we ought to read "rain," or rein: the old spelling, raine, having either meaning.

"And leave itself UNFURNISH'D"-i. e. "Unfurnished with a companion or fellow. In Fletcher's Lover's Progress, Alcidon says to Clarangé, on delivering Lidian's challenge, which Clarangé accepts:

-you are a noble gentleman,

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Will't please you bring a friend; we are two of us, And pity, either of us should be unfurnish'd. The hint for this passage appears to have been taken from Greene's History of Faire Bellora;' afterwards published under the title of A Paire of Turtle Doves:" If Apelles had beene tasked to have drawne her counterfeit, her two bright burning lampes would have so dazzled his quick-seeing sences, that quite dispairing to expresse with his cunning pensill so admirable a worke of nature, he had been inforced to have staid his hand, and left this earthly Venus unfinished.' A preceding passage in Bassanio's speech might have been suggested by the same novel: 'What are our curled and crisped lockes, but snares and nets to catch and entangle the hearts of gazers,' etc."-MALONE AND STEVENS. Both quartos

"--sum of NOTHING"--So the folio. read "sum of something;" which is the ordinary text. We agree with Mason, Knight, and Collier in preferring the reading of the folio, as it is Portia's intention in this speech to undervalue herself in comparison with what she would wish to be for Bassanio's sake.

"-and SALERIO"-"A Messenger from Venice" is added in the stage-direction of the quartos. Knight thinks this should be Salanio. But in the scenes just be

fore and just after he is at Venice-while the name of Salarino will not agree with the metre. It may have been a slip of the author's memory, by which the name was altered without intending a new character.

"I bid my VERY friends and countrymen"-True and real friends a common sense, anciently, of very, now retained only in a few phrases, as, "He is the very man for it"-i. e. the true man for it.

SCENE III.

"Consisteth of all nations"-The sense of these lines is clear, though the construction is not a little involved: Antonio says, that the duke cannot deny the course of law, because if the commodity, or advantage, which strangers enjoy in Venice be denied, that denial will much impeach the justice of the state, which derives its profit from all nations. No change of the ancient text seems necessary, though Capel, and Knight after him, print the lines thus altered:

Ant. The duke cannot deny the course of law,
For the commodity that strangers have

With us in Venice; if it be denied,

'Twill much impeach the justide of the state.

SCENE IV

"Unto the TRANECT"-"Shakespeare most likely obtained this word from some novel to which he resorted for his plot. It is supposed to be derived from the Italian tranare, (to draw,) owing to the passage-boat on the Brenta being drawn over a dam by a crane, at a place about five miles from Venice."-COLLIER.

"I could not do WITHAL"-An idiom of the time for I could not help it. See Gifford's" Ben Jonson," note on "Silent Woman,"

ACT IV.-SCENE I.

"A Court of Justice"- -"The whole of the final scene is a master-piece of dramatic skill, The legal acuteness, the passionate declamation, the sound maxims of jurisprudence, the wit and irony interspersed in it, the fluctuations of hope and fear in the different persons, and the completeness and suddenness of the catastrophe, cannot be paralleled. Shylock, who is his own counsel, defends himself well, and is triumphant on all the general topics that are urged against him, and only fails through a legal flaw. The keenness of his revenge awakens all his faculties, and he beats back all opposition to his purpose, whether grave or gay, whether of art or argument, with an equal degree of earnestness and self-possession,”—Hazlitt.

his ENVY's reach"-Envy, of old, was often used in the sense of hatred, malice; a sense often found in our English Bible.

"Thoul't show thy mercy and REMORSE"-Remorse here means pity, as in MEASURE FOR MEASURE, and elsewhere,

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"Enow to press a ROYAL MERCHANT down," etc, Warburton and Johnson remark that "royal mer chant" is not merely a ranting epithet as applied to mer chauts, for such were to be found at Venice in the Sanudos, the Giustiniani, the Grimaldi, etc. thet was striking, and well understood in Shakespeare's time, when Gresham was dignified with the title of the royal merchant, both from his wealth and because he constantly transacted the mercantile business of Queen Elizabeth.

"But, say, it is my HUMOUR-"The worthy Corporal Nym hath this apology usually at his fingers' ends, and Shylock condescends to excuse his extravagant cruelty

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as a humour, or irresistible propensity of the mind. The word humour' is not used in its modern signification, but for a peculiar quality which sways and masters the individual through all his actions."-WALTER SCOTT. In Rowland's "Epigrams," No. 27 amply illustrates this phrase:

Aske Humors, why a fether he doth weare?

It is his humour (by the Lord) heele sweare, etc.

"Cannot contain their urine for AFFECTION:
MASTERS OF PASSION SWAY it to the mood

Of what it likes, or loaths."

With Collier, we give the text as printed and pointed in all the original editions, with the single change of "sway" for sways. The sense is then obvious. After giving other examples to the same effect, Shylock adds that some men are affected, physically, by the sound of the bagpipe: for, whoever or whatever are the masters of passion, they govern and incline it to the mood of its likings or loathings. If the reader, like many of the commentators, is not satisfied with this reading, he may make his own selection among the editorial conjectures. Rowe and Pope preserved the old punctuation, and gave the text thus:

Masterless passion sways it to the mood
Of what it likes, or loaths,

The next reading is

- for affection, Master of passion, sways it to the mood, etc. Stevens adopted an anonymous writer's conjecture of— affection,

Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood, etc. Any one of the above readings might have come from the Poet's pen, and the difference of sense is scarcely worth the pages of controversy it has occasioned.

"Why he cannot abide A GAPING PIG"-" A pig prepared for the table is most probably meant, for in that state is the epithet gaping' most applicable to this animal. So, in Fletcher's Elder Brother :'-—

And they stand gaping like a roasted pig. And in Nashe's 'Pierce Pennylesse, his Supplication to the Devil,' (1592,) the following passage may serve to confirm the conjecture:- The causes conducting unto wrath are as diverse as the actions of a man's life. Some will take on like a madman if they see a pig come to the table. Sotericus, the surgeon, was cholerick at the sight of a sturgeon,' etc,"-SINGER.

"—a WOOLLEN bag-pipe"-So the old copies. It is ordinarily written swollen bagpipe, upon the suggestion of Sir John Hawkins. Dr. Johnson would read wooden. The old reading has the testimony of Dr. Leyden, in his edition of "The Complaynt of Scotland," who informs us that the Lowland bagpipe commonly had the bag or sack covered with woollen cloth, of a green colour; a practice which, he adds, prevailed in the northern counties of England.

"When they are FRETTEN"-So both the old quartos, and there seems no reason to abandon this form of the

participle, though the folío and later editions have fretted.

"To cut the forfeiture from that BANKROUT there" — I have preserved the old orthography of the word now spelt bankrupt, because that was the uniform mode of the age, and retains the etymology of a word, the precise meaning of which has long been the subject of legal and constitutional discussion in the United States,

"You stand WITHIN HIS DANGER"-" Within his danger" was anciently equivalent to "within his power." Thus, in North's "Plutarch," a book familiar to Shakespeare, Pompey is said to have brought the pirates "within his danger;" thence it became familiarly applied to the power of the creditor over another person. Here both meanings seem included.

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd"-Hooker's magnificent personification of "Law," considered in its broadest sense, as a right rule of moral and social action,

affords a remarkable parallel to this beautiful passage. It is at the end of the first book of his celebrated "Ecclesiastical Polity," which was published about a year before the MERCHANT OF VENICE was written. It is quoted here, not because there is any reason whatever to suppose that Shakespeare was indebted to it in any way, but as a striking instance, among many, of the coincidence and resemblance of poetical spirit and philosophical thought between the greater minds of that wonderful age of English genius. "Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."

"Repent NOT you that you shall lose your friend" It may admit of doubt whether this reading, which is that of the folio, or "Repent but you," of the two quartos, ought to be adopted.

"any of the stock of Barabbas"-Shakespeare seems to have followed the pronunciation usual to the theatre, Barabbas being sounded Barabas throughout Marlowe's" Jew of Malta,"

"Had I been judge, thou should'st have had ten more"— i. e. A jury of twelve men to find him guilty and have him hanged;-a favourite joke, found in several of the dramatic writers of the age, which the Poet adopted without stopping to consider, what he could not but have known, that an allusion to the English jury was out of place at Venice.

(Costume of the Doge of Venice.)

ACT V.-SCENE I.

"The moon shines bright.-In such a night as this"The beauty and truth of this exquisite night-scene need not to be pointed out to the American reader, who is familiar under his own skies with such moons pouring floods of liquid radiance, and such nights "but little paler than the day"-such as many an English traveller and many a poet have described with wonder and delight when seen in Italy or the east. It is the intense feeling of reality in this scene that, to my mind, gives strong confirmation of the opinion that Shakespeare had, at some period prior to this drama, wandered beneath the skies and moons of Italy. Still it is not conclusive. England has her own brighter nights, which the Poet's

fancy might light up to the golden star-paved heavens and the brilliant moonlight gazed upon by lovers' eyes from the gardens of Belmont.

"-she doth stray about

By holy crosses," etc.

"These holy crosses still, as of old, bristle the land in Italy, and sanctify the sea. Besides those contained in churches, they mark the spots where heroes were born. where saints rested, where travellers died. They rise on the summits of hills, and at the intersection of roads; aud there is now a shrine of the Madonna del Mare in the midst of the sea between Mestre and Venice, and another between Venice and Palestrina, where the gondolier and the mariner cross themselves in passing, and whose lamp nightly gleams over the waters, in moonlight or storm. The days are past when pilgrims of all ranks, from the queen to the beggar-maid, might be seen kneeling and praying for happy wedlock hours,' or for whatever else lay nearest their hearts; and the reverence of the passing traveller is now nearly all the homage that is paid at these shrines."-KNIGHT.

"Is thick inlaid with PATENS of bright gold"-Patines or "patens," as it is variously spelled, signifies a dish or plate; but is preserved in modern language only in ecclesiastical use for the plate used at the eucharist, generally of some precious metal, and in heraldry, where it means a round, broad, plate of gold. The folio of 1632 has patterns, which Collier prefers and adopts in his text. It seems to me a misprint, as patterns, in its modern sense, for the plan of a carpet or other similar work, (which alone could give any sense here,) is more modern than Shakespeare's text.

"There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st"— Several occasions have been taken, in the course of the Notes of this edition, to trace, as an interesting part of literary history, the pedigree of some of the Poet's imagery or thoughts, not copied in the way of direct imitation, but as evidently suggested by passages of prior authors, who have themselves been indebted to a more remote antiquity. We may here trace a nobler genealogy of descent, in one of the most magnificent passages of English poetry, from one of the greatest conceptions of the most poetical philosophy of antiquity; and this again is almost rivalled by similar passages of succeeding poets, who were proud to own themselves the successful imitators of Shakespeare.

The origin of the thought in these lines is drawn from the philosophical imagination of Plato, who, in his "Republic" and "Timocus," nearly two thousand years before Shakespeare, had taught that the heavenly bodies in their revolutions produced, by their rapid motion, the most exquisite musical harmony, so loud, various, and sweet, as to exceed all proportion to the human ear; and therefore, to be inaudible to men. He taught too, that immortal souls had been formed, equal in number to the stars, each having a celestial orb assigned to it, as its original celestial abode; but that many of these spirits were banished thence to the earth, and there clothed for a time in human bodies, as in a sepulchre, or prison. These grand imaginations of the philosopher, combined with an allegorical doctrine of Fate or Destiny, and an ingenious theory of musical melodies, after having been expounded and explained by Proclus and other later Greek Platonists, passed into the philosophy of the Christian Church. On the revival of letters, the Platonic philosophy, as modified by Christianity, became the favourite theory of many of the most distinguished speculative scholars, such as Bessarion and Ficinus, in Italy, and afterwards More and Cudworth, in England. Shakespeare's illustrious contemporary, "the judicious Hooker," was familiar with this learning, and has intimated an opinion not unlike "the harmony in immortal souls" here spoken of. "Touching musical harmony, (says he,) it being but of high and low sounds in a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very

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