Chapter 18

Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? You have among you many a purchas'd slave, Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, You use in abject and in slavish part, Because you bought them:--shall I say to you, Let them be free, marry them to your heirs? Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates Be season'd with such viands? you will answer, The slaves are ours:--so do I answer you: The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it; If you deny me, fie upon your law! There is no force in the decrees of Venice: I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?

The keenness of his revenge awakes all his faculties; and he beats back all opposition to his purpose, whether grave or gay, whether of wit or argument, with an equal degree of eamestness and self-possession. His character is displayed as distinctly in other less prominent parts of the play, and we may collect from a few sentences the history of his life--his descent and origin, his thrift and domestic economy, his affection for his daughter, whom he loves next to his wealth, his courtship and his first present to Leah, his wife! 'I would not have parted with it' (the ring which he first gave her) 'for a wilderness of monkeys!' What a fine Hebraism is implied in this expression!

Portia is not a very great favourite with us, neither are we in love with her maid, Nerissa. Portia has a certain degree of affectation and pedantry about her, which is very unusual in Shakespeare's women, but which perhaps was a proper qualification for the office of a 'civil doctor', which she undertakes and executes so successfully. The speech about mercy is very well; but there are a thousand finer ones in Shakespeare. We do not admire the scene of the caskets; and object entirely to the Black Prince, Morocchius. We should like Jessica better if she had not deceived and robbed her father, and Lorenzo, if he had not married a Jewess, though he thinks he has a right to wrong a Jew. The dialogue between this newly married couple by moonlight, beginning 'On such a night', &c., is a collection of classical elegancies. Launcelot, the Jew's man, is an honest fellow. The dilemma in which he describes himself placed between his 'conscience and the fiend', the one of which advises him to run away from his master's service and the other to stay in it, is exquisitely humorous.

Gratiano is a very admirable subordinate character. He is the jester of the piece: yet one speech of his, in his own defence, contains a whole volume of wisdom.

Anthonio. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, A stage, where every one must play his part; And mine a sad one.

Gratiano. Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice By being peevish? I tell thee what, Anthonio-- I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;-- There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond: And do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be drest in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark'! O, my Anthonio, I do know of these, That therefore only are reputed wise, For saying nothing; who, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, Which hearing them, would call their brothers fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time; But fish not, with this melancholy bait, For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.

Gratiano's speech on the philosophy of love, and the effect of habit in taking off the force of passion, is as full of spirit and good sense. The graceful winding up of this play in the fifth act, after the tragic business is dispatched, is one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare's knowledge of the principles of the drama. We do not mean the pretended quarrel between Portia and Nerissa and their husbands about the rings, which is amusing enough, but the conversation just before and after the return of Portia to her own house, begining 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank', and ending 'Peace! how the moon sleeps with Endymion, and would not be awaked'. There is a number of beautiful thoughts crowded into that short space, and linked together by the most natural transitions.

When we first went to see Mr. Kean in Shylock we expected to see, what we had been used to see, a decrepid old man, bent with age and ugly with mental deformity, grinning with deadly malice, with the venom of his heart congealed in the expression of his countenance, sullen, morose, gloomy, inflexible, brooding over one idea, that of his hatred, and fixed on one unalterable purpose, that of his revenge. We were disappointed, because we had taken our idea from other actors, not from the play. There is no proof there that Shylock is old, but a single line, 'Bassanic and old Shylock, both stand forth,'--which does not imply that he is infirm with age--and the circumstance that he has a daughter marriageable, which does not imply that he is old at all. It would be too much to say that his body should be made crooked and deformed to answer to his mind, which is bowed down and warped with prejudices and passion. That he has but one idea, is not true; he has more ideas than any other person in the piece: and if he is intense and inveterate in the pursuit of his purpose, he shows the utmost elasticity, vigour, and presence of mind, in the means of attaining it. But so rooted was our habitual impression of the part from seeing it caricatured in the representation, that it was only from a careful perusal of the play itself that we saw our error. The stage is not in general the best place to study our author's characters in. It is too often filled with traditional common-place conceptions of the part, handed down from sire to son, and suited to the taste of THE GREAT VULGAR AND THE SMALL.--''Tis an unweeded garden: things rank and gross do merely gender in it!' If a man of genius comes once in an age to clear away the rubbish, to make it fruitful and wholesome, they cry, "Tis a bad school: it may be like nature, it may be like Shakespeare, but it is not like us." Admirable critics!

THE WINTER'S TALE

We wonder that Mr. Pope should have entertained doubts of the genuineness of this play. He was, we suppose, shocked (as a certain critic suggests) at the Chorus, Time, leaping over sixteen years with his crutch between the third and fourth act, and at Antigonus's landing with the infant Perdita on the seacoast of Bohemia. These slips or blemishes, however, do not prove it not to be Shakespeare's; for he was as likely to fall into them as anybody; but we do not know anybody but himself who could produce the beauties. The STUFF of which the tragic passion is composed, the romantic sweetness, the comic humour, are evidently his. Even the crabbed and tortuous style of the speeches of Leontes, reasoning on his own jealousy, beset with doubts and fears, and entangled more and more in the thorny labyrinth, bears every mark of Shakespeare's peculiar manner of conveying the painful struggle of different thoughts and feelings, labouring for utterance, and almost strangled in me birth. For instance:

Ha' not you seen, Camillo? (But that's past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn) or heard, (For to a vision so apparent, rumour Cannot be mute) or thought (for cogitation Resides not within man that does not think) My wife is slippery? If thou wilt, confess, Or else be impudently negative, To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought.--

Here Leontes is confounded with his passion, and does not know which way to turn himself, to give words to the anguish, rage, and apprehension which tug at his breast. It is only as he is worked up into a clearer conviction of his wrongs by insisting on the grounds of his unjust suspicions to Camillo, who irritates him by his opposition, that he bursts out into the following vehement strain of bitter indignation: yet even here his passion staggers, and is as it were oppressed with its own intensity.

Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career Of laughter with a sigh? (a note infallible Of breaking honesty!) horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? Hours, minutes? the noon, midnight? and all eyes Blind with the pin and web, but theirs; theirs only, That would, unseen, be wicked? is this nothing? Why then the world, and all that's in't, is nothing, The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia's nothing, My wife is nothing!

The character of Hermione is as much distinguished by its saint-like resignation and patient forbearance, as that of Paulina is by her zealous and spirited remonstrances against the injustice done to the queen, and by her devoted attachment to her misfortunes. Hermione's restoration to her husband and her child, after her long separation from them, is as affecting in itself as it is striking in the representation. Camillo, and the old shepherd and his son, are subordinate but not uninteresting instruments in the development of the plot, and though last, not least, comes Autolycus, a very pleasant, thriving rogue; and (what is the best feather in the cap of all knavery) he escapes with impunity in the end.

THE WINTER'S TALE is one of the best-acting of our author's plays. We remember seeing it with great pleasure many years ago. It was on the night that King took leave of the stage, when he and Mrs. Jordan played together in the after-piece of The Wedding-day. Nothing could go off with more eclat, with more spirit, and grandeur of effect. Mrs. Siddons played Hermione, and in the last scene acted the painted statue to the life--with true monumental dignity and noble passion; Mr. Kemble, in Leontes, worked himself up into a very fine classical frenzy; and Bannister, as Autolycus, roared as loud for pity as a sturdy beggar could do who felt none of the pain he counterfeited, and was sound of wind and limb. We shall never see these parts so acted again; or if we did, it would be in vain. Actors grow old, or no longer surprise us by their novelty. But true poetry, like nature, is always young; and we still read the courtship of Florizel and Perdita, as we welcome the return of spring, with the' same feelings as ever.

Florizel. Thou dearest Perdita, With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not The mirth o' the feast: or, I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's: for I cannot be Mine own, nor anything to any, if I be not thine. To this I am most constant, Tho' destiny say. No. Be merry, gentle; Strangle such thoughts as these, with anything That you behold the while. Your guests are coming: Lift up your countenance; as it were the day Of celebration of that nuptial which We two have sworn shall come.

Perdita. O lady Fortune, Stand you auspicious!

Enter Shepherd, Clown, Mopsa, Dobcas, Servants; with Polixenes, and Camillo, disguised.

Florizel. See, your guests approach. Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth.

Shepherd. Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook; Both dame and servant: welcom'd all, serv'd all: Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now here At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle: On his shoulder, and his: her face o' fire With labour; and the thing she took to quench it She would to each one sip. You are retir d, As if you were a feasted one, and not The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid These unknown friends to us welcome; for it is A way to make us better friends, more known. Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself That which you are, mistress o' the feast. Come on, And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, As your good flock shall prosper.

Perdita. Sir, welcome! [To Polixenes and Camillo.] It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day: you're welcome, sir! Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.--Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming, and savour, all the winter long: Grace and remembrance be unto you both And welcome to our shearing!

Polixenes. Shepherdess, (A fair one are you) well you fit our ages With flowers of winter.

Perdita. Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations, and streak'd gilly-flowers, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them.

Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them?

Perdita. For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature.

Polixenes. Say, there be: Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock; And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather: but The art itself is nature.

Perdita. So it is. [Footnote: The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind.]

Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them bastards.

Perdita. I'll not put The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them; [Footnote: The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind.] No more than, were I painted, I would wish This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore Desire to breed by me.--Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given To men of middle age. You are very welcome.

Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

Perdita. Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now my fairest friends. I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina! For the flowers now that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares and take The winds of March with beauty: violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength (a malady Most incident to maids); bold oxlips, and The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds, The fleur-de-lis being one! O, these I lack To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend To strow him o'er and o'er.

Florizel. What, like a corse?

Perdita. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse; or if--not to be buried, But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers; Methinks, I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine Does change my disposition.

Florizel. What you do, Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever: when you sing, I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms; Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs, To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that; move still, still so, And own no other function. Each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds, That all your acts are queens.

Perdita. O Doricles, Your praises are too large; but that your youth And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it, Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd; With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way.

Florizel. I think you have As little skill to fear, as I have purpose To put you to't. But come, our dance, I pray. Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair, That never mean to part.

Perdita. I'll swear for 'em.

Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-bom lass that ever Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does, or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself, Too noble for this place.

Camillo. He tells her something That makes her blood look out: good sooth she is The queen of curds and cream.

This delicious scene is interrupted by the father of the prince discovering himself to Florizel, and haughtily breaking off the intended match between his son and Perdita. When Polixenes goes out, Perdita says,

Even here undone! I was not much afraid; for once or twice I was about to speak; and tell him plainly The self-same sun that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on't alike. Wilt please you, sir, be gone? [To Florizel.] I told you what would come of this. Beseech you, Of your own state take care; this dream of mine, Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further, But milk my ewes and weep.

As Perdita, the supposed shepherdess, turns out to be the daughter of Hermione, and a princess in disguise, both feelings of the pride of birth and the claims of nature are satisfied by the fortunate event of the story, and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest court-etiquette.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is one of the most pleasing of our author's comedies. The interest is, however, more of a serious than of a comic nature. The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem. Perhaps the romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when young Roussillon leaves his mother's house, under whose protection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the French king's court.

Helena. Oh, were that all--I think not on my father, And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him. My imagination Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's. I am undone, there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it; he is so above me: In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself; The hind that would be mated by the lion, Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague, To see him every hour, to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls In our heart's table: heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics.

The interest excited by this beautiful picture of a kind and innocent heart is kept up afterwards by her resolution to follow him to France, the success of her experiment in restoring the king's health, her demanding Bertram in marriage as a recompense, his leaving her in disdain, her interview with him afterwards disguised as Diana, a young lady whom he importunes with his secret addresses, and their final reconciliation when the consequences of her stratagem and the proofs of her love are fully made known. The persevering gratitude of the French king to his benefactress, who cures him of a languishing distemper by a prescription hereditary in her family, the indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose pride of birth yields, almost without struggle, to her affection for Helen, the honesty and uprightness of the good old lord Lafeu, make very interesting parts of the picture. The wilful stubbornness and youthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. The comic part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, and cowardice of Parolles, a parasite and hanger-on of Bertram's, the detection of whose false pretensions to bravery and honour forms a very amusing episode. He is first found out by the old lord Lafeu, who says, 'The soul of this man is in his clothes'; and it is proved afterwards that his heart is in his tongue, and that both are false and hollow. The adventure of'the bringing off of his drum' has become proverbial as a satire on all ridiculous and blustering undertakings which the person never means to perform: nor can anything be more severe than what one of the bystanders remarks upon what Parolles says of himself, 'Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?' Yet Parolles himself gives the best solution of the difficulty afterwards when he is thankful to escape with his life and the loss of character; for, so that he can live on, he is by no means squeamish about the loss of pretensions, to which he had sense enough to know he had no real claims, and which he had assumed only as a means to live.

Parolles. Yet I am thankful; if my heart were great, 'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more, But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft As captain shall. Simply the thing I am Shall make me live; who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it shall come to pass, That every braggart shall be found an ass. Rust sword, cool blushes, and Parolles live Safest in shame; being fooi'd, by fool'ry thrive; There's place and means for every man alive. I'll after them.