AN ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTER OF SHYLOCK, ORIGINATING IN AN EXAMINATION OF THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF MOSES, AND ENUMERATIONS OF POPULATION, AND THE RATE OF INTEREST OF MONEY. BY GEORGE FARREN, Resident Director of the Asylum Life Office. AUTHOR OF." OBSERVATIONS ON THE LAWS OF MORTALITY AND DISEASE AND ON JBRARY LONDON: PELHAM RICHARDSON, 23, CORNHILL. 1833. PRICE ONE SHILLING. most brooo! yod of weld tota To those who are acquainted with the pursuits of the Author of the following Essay, it cannot be/unknown that the two essential elements of a system of Life Assurance are―The probable duration, or more correctly speaking, the expectation of human existence: and a defined rate of of the breed of money commonly called interest. oidFor the former recourse must be had to various enumerations of population, with the relative lists of burial; and for the latter-to the fluctuations in the value of money, influenced by fiscal regulations affecting the precious metals, and by the laws relating to interest. Now the earliest enumerations and classifications of population are those recorded in Exodus, xxx. 12, 13, 14; Leviticus, xxvi, 3; Numbers, i.—iv. and xxvi. and II Samuel, xxiv. Some of these 30533 ii books also speak of interest of money; and in the course of a minute examination, on these points, of the laws and customs of Moses, as well as of those propounded for the primitive Christians, the Author was forcibly struck by the recollection of certain passages in Shakespeare which seemed to him to have been derived from sacred sources. These labours and recollections originated the idea of an Essay on the character of Shylock; and as the Author's former publications on the varieties in Mania, illustrated in Lear, Edgar, Hamlet, and Ophelia, were favourably received by numerous readers, he has been induced to submit the present paper also for public opinion. SHYLOCK. ACT I. SCENE III. Or the many splendid Essays on the vices and frailties springing from human passions, which Shakespeare has furnished in the course of his plays, the character of Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice, may be considered as the masterpiece. It has been truly said, that "His language, allusions, and ideas, are every where so appropriate to a Jew, that Shylock might be exhibited for an exemplar of that peculiar people."-Still. the reader of the play will not find his expectation of superior pleasure realized, by witnessing its performance on the stage. For the last fifty ...years, Shylock has been portrayed as a Being of coarse manners, servile habits, and most vindictive temper; penurious in his ways, griping in his dealings, unjust in his practices, and so ferocious in his nature, as to be devoid of those common feelings of tenderness towards kindred, with which even the brute Creation are generally |