Merchant of Venice. Should fee falvation-we do pray for mercy However we may admire the expression and benevolent tendency of this speech, yet an obvious objection lies against the passage marked by italics; which, as it evidently refers to the Lords's Prayer, ought not to be even hinted at, where a Jew was in question, as it would rather work an irritative than lenitive effect. Shylock's servile and rapturous adoration of the supposed lawyer, for sustaining the folidity of the bond, is inimitably expressed by exclamations; and the cause works up against Antonio to a very pathe-tic crifis; when a very natural and most agreeable turn of Portia's, defeats the Jew's blood-thirsty hopes, frees the merchant, and gives general joy: there is not any incident in any drama, which strikes so sudden and so powerful an effect; the retorts of Gratiano are admirably pleasant, and the wretched state to which Shylock is in his turn reduced, is so agreeable a facrifice to justice, that it conveys inexpressible satisfaction to every feeling mind; the lenity of Antonio is judiciously opposed to the malevolence of his inexorable perfecutor. Upon the Jew's leaving court, Gratiano speaks thus to him: "In chriftening thou shalt have two godfathers, had I been judge thou shouldst have had ten more, to bring thee to the gallows, not the font;" in this speech our author has made a very censurable flip, by furnishing Gratiano, who is a Venetian, 1 Merchant of Venice. Venetian, with an observation that refers to the English mode of trial by jury, which the words quoted certainly imply. What follows to the end of this act, is only a stratagem of the ladies to get those rings from their husbands, which they had made them swear not to part with; hence arises some matter to eke forward a piece which should undoubtedly have ended with the trial, as no event of equal force could follow the merchant's acquittal. At the beginning of the fifth act, Lorenzo and Jessica, in a ftrain of tender dalliance, play upon the idea of a serene moon-light night very agreeably, till they are interrupted by a messenger, signifying Portia's return, and Launcelot roaring out in fimple ecstacy his master's approach; Lorenzo, however, willing to enjoy the beauty of the night, indulges fanciful speculation in the following elegant strain: How sweet the moonlight fleeps upon this bank, What follows upon Jessica's remark, that music does not make her chearful, we venture also to give our Merchant of Venice. our readers as the subject of general approbation, among the tasteful admirers of poetical excurfions. The reason is your spirits are attentive, Though the lines in Italics have been often quoted, and received, as conveying an irrefragable maxim, we must contend that there is confiderably more fancy than truth in them, as experience sufficiently proves, from a multitude of instances of bad ears being annexed to good hearts; let it fuffice to say, that one of the greatest writers one of the deepest scholars, one of the most moral and peaceable men of the present age, has so little relifh for music, that being carried to hear Alexander's Feast, as fet by HANDEL, he shook his head, and faid, the performance only convinced him, that infipid, jingling founds, VOL. I. might : Pp Merchant of Venice. 290 The DRAMATIC CENSOR. might spoil the best written piece in the world; from hence we may deem Shakespeare's compliment to harmony rather partially enthusiastic; were it really the cafe, we have no reason to fear any thing from our political commotions, while music is fo much admired as to join processions, attend dinners, &c. nor can a libel, if sung, have any treasonable effect; never was Britain more musically inclined than at present, therefore consequently free from all apprehenfions of stratagems and spoils. A Upon Portia's entrance, she sees a light burning in her own hall, which by a stretch of propriety, she affimilates to a good deed in a bad world; had the candle's beams been enveloped with a deep nightly gloom, the allusion might have been allowable; but when the moon has such power as description gives it in this scene, the taper's light muft have been very dim and imperfect, Keeping the characters so long out of doors, when they might as well have been housed, is a wanton breach of probability; however, there they are, and we must enjoy the moon-shine with them: after some very short congratulations, a quarrel starts up between Gratiano and Neriffa, concerning the ring which she obtained from him as the lawyer's clerkthere is an abominable expreffion in the third line of Gratiano's first speech on this matter. This dispute catching Portia's ear, she justifies Neriffa's resentment, which occafions Gratiano to rap off that Bassanio gave his ring away; here fresh and very entertaining perplexity arifes from well Merchant of Venice. well assumed jealousy, on the part of the women; and the arch cause they give for real jealousy to their hufbands, the discovery of who really got the rings, and the characters the ladies assumed, brings the piece to a very natural, pleasant and fatisfactory conclufion. 1 This play breaks in upon the unities of time and place materially, however, the plot is not very irregular, and the scenes fall into a tolerable arrangement; we must consider the fifth act but as a kind of after-game, though agreeably supported; and repeat our wish, that Shylock's defeat, with a difcovery of the ladies in court, had formed the catastrophe. Though we cannot trace a general moral, yet from many passages, useful, instructive inferences may be drawn, particularly the choice of the caskets, which shews that humility and judgment obtain meritorioufly, what oftentation and, vanity lose; from the Jew's fate may be learned, that perfevering cruelty is very capable of drawing ruin on itself-in those scenes where sentiments and expreffions of dignity are requifite, we find them amply provided, in less material passages, both are triffing. Shylock, whose peculiarity of character and language we have hinted, is a most disgraceful picture of human nature; he is drawn, what we think man never was, all shade, not a gleam of light; subtle, selfish, fawning, irrascible and tyrannic; as he is like no dramatic personage but himself, the mode of representation should be particular; as to figure Ppa : |