unsuspecting brothers to a feast, and caused them all to be strangled.

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We may compare the allusion, in Act iii., Sc. 2, to a Cotswold man," with the mention of Cotsall in the nearly contemporary play, the Merry Wives of Windsor (i. 1, 92).

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It would be a matter of great interest to trace to their origin many of the phrases put into the mouth of Pistol; truly “the swaggering rascal” (ii. 4, 76) was a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" (Winter's Tale); truly he had been at many a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps' (Love's Labour's Lost). The following are a few of his borrowed expressions, taken from Act ii. Sc. 4 :—

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(1) Lines 170 and 189: “Have we not Hiren here?” may be a line from Peele's Turkish Mahomet, or Hyren (Irene) the Fair Greek.

(2) Lines 178, 179:

"And hollow pampered jades of Asia,

Which cannot go but thirty miles a day;"

are a mangled version of two lines in Marlowe's Tamberlaine (1590).

(3) Line 193: "Feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis," occurs twice in Peele's Battle of Alcazar (1594).

(4) Line 195: "Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento," appeared in a book entitled Wits, Fits, and Fancies, entered on the Stationers' Register in 1595.

(5) Line 211: "Death rock me asleep," occurs in an old song attributed to Anne Boleyn.

(6) Line 211: "Abridge my doleful days" is found in the Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578).

...

Another of Pistol's expressions: ""Tis 'semper idem' 'tis all in every part," may be paralleled by the following sentence in Sir John Davis's Nosce Teipsum (1599): “Some say she's all in all, and all in every part." [Query: who were they from whom Pistol and Davis borrowed the phrase?]

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

"The nice sharp quillets of the law."-1 Henry VI.

"The story is extant, and writ in very choice Italian.”—Hamlet.

There is pretty conclusive evidence that the subject of this comedy had been previously dramatised. Stephen Gosson, in his School of Abuse, 1579, speaks of a play entitled The Jew, as "showne at the Bull," and "representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and bloody mindes of usurers;' this description almost certainly points out the two plots upon which Shakespeare afterwards worked. Again, from Henslowe's Diary we learn that a new play, entitled The Venesyon Comodey, was produced on August 25th, 1594; whether this was Shakespeare's play is a question still sub judice; in support of the supposition it may be stated that the Lord Chamberlain's Company seem to have been connected with Henslowe at this very time, that Roberts when he entered the play in 1598 called it ": a booke of The Merchaunt of Venyce, or otherwise called The Jewe Venyse" (so that, as Prof. Ward remarks, the comedy might well be known by the local appellation), that Roberts when he brought his quarto edition in 1600, omits, apparently with a fraudulent intention, the mention of the Company by whom the play was acted, and that in this year (1598) on consecutive days there were entered, on the Stationers' Register, the Ballad of Gernutus (see below) and Marlowe's Jew of Malta, the last-mentioned fact doubtless implying a revival of that tragedy, which was perhaps run (by Lord Pembroke's Company?) in opposition to the Venesyon Comodey.

On the other hand, it has been urged that "Shakespeare's plays were not at any time acted at the Rose" (see Mr. Fleay, Shakespeare Manual, p. 34), and that "the dramatists of

that time were fond of laying their scenes in Italy, so that the identification is very uncertain" (see the Clarendon Press Edition, p. xxi.; which, however, a little lower down, speaks of "its first production in 1594").

Again, internal evidence has been called to the aid of the early date; attention has been drawn to the rhyme, the doggerel, and the classical allusions, as well as to the "fooling" of Launcelot as compared with that of Launce; but may it not be answered, that the 5-measure rhyme is very little more than what we find in Measure for Measure, in Hamlet, in Othello, in Lear (while we might almost have expected that the casketscenes would be entirely in rhyme-especially if they are founded upon an older play), that the short-lined rhyme is necessary for the mottoes, &c., that the doggerel, if Shakespeare's at all, is reduced almost to a minimum, that the classical allusions, if taken by quantity, would place it among the very earliest of his plays (which is absurd), but, if taken by quality, would place it just in that period to which it will be here assigned (1597—8), and that, as to the comparison of Launcelot with Launce, the opinion that they are contemporaries is not universal, and at any rate, Shakespeare has not here given us “twins,” there is no Speed to match Launcelot. Lastly, we may refer to the universally admitted power of composition, and beauty of style;" to the marvellous way in which the plots are blended, to the admirable mixture of comedy and tragedy, to the beautiful "æsthetic" and moral": " termination by which the "musical interlude "2 of the fifth act affords relaxation after the tension of the fourth.

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These considerations, taken with the external or nearly external evidence which will be immediately referred to, lead to the conclusion that the play was composed by Shakespeare but a short time before the allusions which are made to it in the year 1598.

Messrs. Clarke and Wright indeed "think that the play 2 Schlegel.

I Gervinus.

was in great part rewritten between the time of its first production in 1594 and its publication in 1600." They point out "slight discrepancies" which may be due to the revision; "particularly that in Act i., Sc. 2, where only four strangers are mentioned as about to take their leave, after six have been described in detail." To this it may be answered that the editors have produced no evidence of "its first production in 1594," rather they have just above thought it “very uncertain;" that the careless revision which they attribute to Shakespeare is not very complimentary to him, and (as to the particular discrepancy upon which they dwell) that they are almost rendering themselves liable to be classed with Mr. Swinburne's "finger-counters" and "finger-casters."

If a subsequent revision be thought to be suggested by the undoubted alterations made in i. 2, 84 [where for "the Scottish Lord" (Q1), the first folio reads "the other Lord," to avoid giving offence to the new monarch], and in i. 2, 99 [where for "I pray God grant" (Q1), F1 reads "I wish," an alteration to meet 3 Jac. I., c. 21], it may be replied that such changes were probably made in all the plays which were revived at that period.

Beside obtaining his plots from Il Pecorone by Giovanni, and from the Gesta Romanorum, Shakespeare has been thought to owe hints or passages to the following :

Marlowe's Few of Malta (1588—1590); opinions differ as to the degree in which our author is indebted to his great predecessor; Hallam speaks of only "a few hints," and these Dyce calls unimportant, while Karl Elze says: "the prototype of Shylock clearly lies in Marlowe's Barabas; without which The Merchant of Venice would in all probability never have been written," and Prof. Ward points out a number of parallel passages in the two dramas.

Alexander Silvayn's Orator, translated from the French by Anthony Munday in 1596 (or 1598), contains a declaration "of a Jew who would for his debt have a pound of flesh of a Christian," and may have suggested some parts

of the Trial Scene, and particularly one of Shylock's speeches.

Dr. Farmer pointed this out, and he also conjectured that the name Shylock may be due to a pamphlet, called Caleb Shillocke His Prophecie, or the Fewes Prediction (date uncertain).

The Ballad of Gernutus, mentioned above, perhaps supplied one or two hints (e.g. the whetting of the knife); Simrock, Al. Schmidt, Delius, Elze,' and other German commentators, however, who claim an early date for The Merchant of Venice, think that the play preceded the ballad.

Speaking of iv. 1, 196, the Clarendon Press editors say: "A similar sentiment is quoted by Blackeway from the petition of the Convocation to Queen Elizabeth in 1580, and Malone quotes parallel passages from Harrington's Orlando Furioso, and from the play of Edward III. It is possible that Shakespeare in writing this passage intended to compliment Elizabeth, whose rule (whatever be the judgment of recent historians) was certainly held by her subjects to be mild and merciful;" and of iii. 2, 32, 33

"Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,

Where men enforced do speak anything :"

they say: “it is pleasant to find Shakespeare before his age in denouncing the futility of this barbarous method of extorting truth. He was old enough to remember the case of Francis Throckmorton in 1584; and that of Squire in 1598 was fresh in his mind. See Lingard's History of England, vol. v. pp. 405, 558."

`Elze thinks that the passage (in v. 1) on the music of the spheres may be taken from Montaigne (1, xxi.), and W. W. Lloyd is of opinion that the old King Leir (1594) furnished notives for a speech or two of our play.

Elze, by the by, supposes that Shakespeare was in Italy in 1593, and to this journey he attributes the correct and vivid sketch of Venetian life and locality in our play, which he assigns to the following year (1594).