Fair Penitent. cenfurable part of the FAIR PENITENT, we have pointed out in our animadversions upon Lothario; if no prejudice is done by him to young minds, we must pronounce this one of our best tragedies, confidered in the several lights, of character, sentiment, regularity, plot, spirit, and pathos. The MERCHANT of VENICE. W Written by SHAKESPEARE. E have neither affixed the stile of tragedy, comedy, nor that of the mingled species to this piece, because it does not properly come under any of those denominations; at the opening, we are presented with Antonio, who, confessing himself lowspirited, is rallied by twofriends, as being thoughtful on account of his merchandize, which charge, however, he denies; Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano enter upon their conversation; the latter also attacks Antonio upon his gloomy visage, and jests very pleasantly on the affectation of gravity, worn by some men as a semblance of wisdom; the exit of this humorist is so whimsical and sudden, that it would seem as if he was only brought on to teize the merchant with his rhapsodical lecture. The manner of Bassanio's disclosing his necessitous condition, is very pleasing and suitable to confidential friendship; his afsimilation of venturing a fresh proof of the merchant's kindness, after some he has already made away with, to the school-boy's shooting one arrow in search of another, is fraught with beautiful simplicity; Antonio's reproof for his friend's using such circumlocution is affectingly generous; as is the manner of promising assistance when he hears Bassanio's design: to lend even when we have the means in immediate possession is a very liberal 2 1 Merchant of Venice. liberal act; but to strain credit for a friend, as Antonio here proposes, lays an enormous weight of obligation upon gratitude. The scene between Portia and Nerissa is wrote with much vivacity and great good sense; there is a pleasing peculiarity of sentiment, with pregnant brevity of expression; from the conversation of these females we find, that Portia's father, by will, has fixed the determination of her marriage, upon chusing right from three cafkets of gold, filver and lead; the fame of her riches, beauty, and the oddity of winning her by a kind of matrimonial lottery, has drawn many suitors; of all whom, separately, Portia gives a very ludicrous and sarcastical account, especially of the English baron and the Scots lord; upon Nerissa's mention of Baffanio, her opinion foftens into the favourable. Baffanio and Shylock approach next; the former, as it appears, folliciting a loan of three thousand ducats, on the credit of Antonio; as the Jew is a very peculiar character, SHAKESPEARE, according to the custom of his unbounded genius, has furnished him with a peculiar mode of expreffion; his pondering upon the hazards attending property at sea is the usurer to a hair-Upon Antonio's entrance, the Israelite makes us acquainted with his motives of antipathy against the merchant: the first of which, his lending out money gratis, shews Shylock to be flinty-hearted: indeed, hating his nation, and personally reviling him, lay a just foundation for dislike; however, we find, that, like a thorough-paced villain, he Merchant of Venice. accosts Antonio with a fair face: when mention is made of neither lending or taking money upon advantage, Shylock enters into the defence of usury by a fcriptural allufior. Here, our author, though he highly supports character, deviates from delicacy concerning the sheep: in Antonio's reply there is a most veritable stroke of fatire upon those, who justify not only error, but infamy from holy writ; accofts Mark you this Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose: Shylock, like other purse-proud knaves, who take liberties with those who borrow money of them, rather rates the merchant, who by generous and spirited contempt, reduces the mercenary sycophant to fubtle fawning; the penalty he proposes on the bond, shews him so provident a villain, that he prepares even for a possibility of wreeking his mortal hatred; there is something very artful when Baffanio declares against the merchant's signing such a bond, in Shylock's throwing an imputation of villainy on Christians, through their fufpicion of other men. The second act begins with a scene, omitted in representation, but why we know not, between the prince of Morocco and Portia, as preparative to his trying the caskets. Launcelot, the Jew's man, in a very whimsical foliloquy, communicates an intention of running away from his master; the contention between his confcience and the fiend, is truly laughable; old Gobbo's introduction means no more than to give Launcelot Merchant of Venice. Launcelot an opportunity to difplay his quibbling, word-catching humour; we wish the scene had a better tendency than mere whim: upon Bassanio's entrance, the father and fon attack him in a very odd manner, to take the latter into his service, which he good naturedly consents to; this piece of good luck occafions a dissertation upon the ridiculous study of palmestry, divertingly fatirical. When Gratiano comes to folicit the liberty of going to Belmont with Bassanio, he is warned to check his skipping spirit, to which he makes a very ludicrous profeffion of gravity. When Launcelot appears, taking leave of Jeffica, we do not approve the expreffion of her "father's house being Hell, and he a merry devil," nor do we relish Launcelot's infinuation of her being got by a Christian: after he goes off, the young Jewess signifies her hopes of delivery from bondage, by the assistance of her lover Lorenzo; the next short scene is nothing more than preparative for putting the said design into execution. In the scene between Shylock, Launcelot and Jeffica, we find the Jew so much alarmed at the idea of masking in the streets, that he gives Jessica a very punctual and positive charge to shut out even the found of shallow foppery, as he calls it-we wonder our author did not make the Jew mention having Antonio bound, which, with exulting hopes of getting the forfeit, would have made him much more respectable in this scene, wherein he is now rather lan VOL. I. 0 |