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truth. There is nothing, therefore, in this scene which necessarily impedes the more rapid action which we have already traced; for I suppose that the greedy burst of malice with which Shylock instructs Tubal to bespeak him an officer a fortnight before,' will suggest nothing more than the extreme impatience of the cruel creditor to glut his revengeful animosity with the utmost certainty and with the shortest delay.

Another suspension of time seems to be suggested by a short speech of Jessica's, immediately after her arrival at Belmont, and while the party there are discussing the intelligence of Antonio's forfeiture. Salerio observes of Shylock, that

'none can drive him from the envious plea Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.'-Act III. sc. ii.

And Jessica subjoins:

'When I was with him I have heard him swear

To Tubal, and to Chus, his countrymen,

That he would rather have Antonio's flesh

Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him.'-Ibid.

This language at first sight seems to imply that Shylock was in the habit of expressing himself thus to his family and friends at home; and doubtless so he was. We know of his long-standing enmity against Antonio; but we must beware of thinking that those expressions had immediate reference to the transaction going on between them. That Jessica was speaking of her father's habit is clear from this, that since the day on which the bond was contracted she has never been at home, never been with him, so as to overhear any of his conversation with his countrymen on the subject. In fact she has had but a single interview with him between the sealing of the bond and her own elopement; and, having ourselves been ear and eye witnesses to that interview, we know that no such conversation took place between her father and his countrymen on that occasion. We must, therefore, understand her as speaking of conversations and transactions prior to the bond, and her speech to be nothing more than evidence of the general and habitual hatred of the Christian merchant which her father was wont to express, while she was with him,' i. e.

before she eloped, or the bond existed. Nor is her expression of 'twenty times the sum,' &c., to be taken for more than a common mode of indicating an indefinite amount. The whole passage, therefore, presents no obstacles to the rapid current of action whose real progress we have already ascertained.

There remains but one more note of retardation to be considered, and it is easily disposed of. Shortly after his arrest, Antonio, weighed down with his calamities, observes:

'These griefs and losses have so 'bated me,

That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh

To-morrow to my bloody creditor.'—Act III. sc. ii.

By this expression it would, at first sight, appear that the forfeiture, the arrest, the trial, and the execution of sentence, did not,. or were not intended to succeed in such rapid succession as we have already assigned. But this is the miscalculation of the merchant, not of the poet. Antonio may have expected that he would not have been brought to trial until 'to-morrow'; or he may have hoped that the execution would have been held over till the 'morrow': and the passage shows nothing more than the natural tenacity with which a man clings to the slenderest hope of a prolonged existence.

It is not to be doubted, however, that, for reasons to be now developed, it was the poet's intention that those procrastinating scenes and sentences should give to his action the appearance of occupying a longer extension of time than that in which it is dramatically transacted. He knew that the drama, being an imitation, a similitude of nature, is not nature itself, but a copy, whose excellence depends on the amount of illusion with which the poet can invest it. He knew, therefore, that dramatic time is not natural time; that the former consists not of the arbitrary segment assigned it by the laws of the Greek or the French schools,-whether that be co-equal with the performance on the stage, or with a period of twelve hours, or with a single revolution of the sun,-but of that period during which the spectator may be supposed capable of watching, without any interruption, or interval of sleep, the progress of an action sufficiently interesting to keep his attention alive and fixed."

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SHAKSPERE'S RICHARD II, WINTER'S TALE, CYMBELINE, AND MACBETH,

From the Writer's own Manuscript, Ashmole 208, Article X.

WITH THE LORD TREASURER'S PAYMENTS FOR THE ACTING OF
6 OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS IN 1613.

I have so often wanted a trustworthy print of the Notes of the old astrological quack Doctor on the four Shakspere plays that he saw in the few months before his death, that I take the present opportunity of putting them in type. Mr Thompson Cooper's excellent Biographical Dictionary (G. Bell, 1873) says of Forman :

"FORMAN, Simon, a noted astrologer, born near Wilton, Wiltshire, 30 Dec. 1552. After receiving a very irregular education, he studied for a time in the free school adjoining Magdalen College, Oxford, and eventually settled in London, where he practised as an empiric, astrologer, and fortune-teller, being much patronised by the credulous. He was greatly harassed by the College of Physicians, until he managed to get a regular license to practise physic from the university of Cambridge. Died Sept. 1611. His only published work is 'The Grounds of the Longitude,' 1591; but he left a mass of MSS., most of which are now in the Ashmolean Museum' at Oxford. Athen. Cantab. vol. iii."

I add the two entries from the Accounts of Lord Stanhope, James I.'s Treasurer of the Chamber, Michaelmas 1612-1613, in the Rawlinson MS. A, 239 (in the Bodleian) as to the performance of six of Shakspere's Plays in 1613.-F. J. F.

* See the late Mr Black's admirable Catalogue of the Ashmole MSS.

APPENDIX II.

DR FORMAN'S BOOK OF PLAYS.

[Ashm. MS. 208, art. X, leaf 200. Bodleian Library. (Not forged.)] The Booke of Plaies and Notes therof per formans for Common Pollicie.

1 In Richard the 2 At the glob 1611 the 30 of Aprill.

Remember therin howe Iack straw by his overmoch boldnes, not beinge pollitick nor suspecting Anye thinge, was Soddenly at Smithfeld Bars stabbed by Walworth the major of London, & soe he and his whole Army was overthrowen. Therfore in such a case or the like, never admit any party, with-out a bar betwen, for A man cannot be so wise, nor kepe him selfe to safe.

Also remember howe the duke of gloster, The Erell of Arundell, oxford and others, crossing the kinge in his humor, about the duke of Erland and Bushy, wer glad to fly and Raise an hoste of men, and beinge in his Castell, howe the d. of Erland cam by nighte to betray him with 300 men, but hauinge pryuie warninge ther-of kept his gates faste, And wold not suffer the Enimie to Enter / which went back Again with a flie in his eare, and after was slainte by the Errell of Arundell in the battell.

Remember also, when the duke and Arundell cam to London with their Army, king Richard came forth to them and met them and gaue them fair wordes, and promised them pardon and that all should be well yf they wold discharge their Army, vpon whose promises and faier Speaches they did yt, and Affter the king byd them all to a banket and soe betraid them and Cut of their heades, &c, because they had not his pardon vnder his hand & sealle before but his worde.

I leaf 201.

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