and I have human faculties and feelings which show me when I am wronged."

How deftly Shakespeare struck the keynote of the Jewish race smarting under Christian contumely and oppression, in the almost identical words of Shylock maddened by his wrongs! It is not too much to suppose that these very words were caught up by the Jews of three centuries ago and handed down from generation to generation almost as a part of their religion.

There was much food for reflection in the story of my fellow-traveller. Jewish frugality and thrift had made his life-struggle with poverty successful; through pride of race he had risen superior in the conflict with Christian oppression. Here was, in some sense, a Shylock, but where was Antonio? Do we find him in the Baptist deacon with his petty, sanctimonious hostility? Since the days of Shylock the adamantine character of the Jew has only been hardening if that were possible, while we Christians think we have vastly improved in our attitude toward the Jews. But is the outspoken enmity of Antonio, are even the brutal taunts of Salarino and Solario improved upon in any degree by the sanctimonious duplicity of the deacon or the refinement of the boycott? It is just this prejudice of old that keeps us from catching a true appreciation of the character of Shylock from the many living types about us. We see him hedged in on one side by the unchanging manners, customs, and traditions of his race and religion, and we proceed at once to hedge him in on the other side by our own opposition and prejudice, until his path in life is narrow indeed. The Jew is almost the same pariah in the Christian social world to-day as three centuries ago. The theatre-goer, or casual reader of Shakespeare imbibes at once a prejudice against Shylock from the simple fact that he is a Jew; and his name has really taken its place among the parts of speech in our language as a synonym for sordid baseness, cruelty and avarice. His dramatic position as well as his race and religion unfortunately adds to this feeling, for the whole strength of the character, grand as in many senses it is, stands as a constantly opposing force to all that we call beautiful in the play. We lose sight of the man and see only the Jew. But as in all of Shakespeare's characters, it is with the man himself, be he Jew, Turk, or infidel, that we have to do.

It is, perhaps, a truism to say that comedy is only tragedy averted or suppressed. The comedy of The Merchant of Venice is one in which the tragic element holds stronger sway and approaches nearer its culmination than in any other of Shakespeare's comedies. In Twelfth Night, for instance, the tragic is continually suppressed until it is a mere undertone, while even in Measure for Measure we feel a confidence that the agent for its suppression is always within reach. But in The Merchant of Venice this element grows and grows, until we are upon the brink of a tragedy with no visible relief at hand.

And this effect is solely due to the character of Shylock, terribly in earnest at every point, making it really a dramatic necessity that he should possess all the strength and force of will, all the intellectual power, and all the pride, hate, and avarice which his words imply. In the ever-recurring changes of potent influences which are continually working upon this strong nature, we are always in danger of losing sight of the character itself. It is perhaps no wonder that for this reason, and from the prejudices just referred to, the character often has been, and still often is, misappreciated or misunderstood. Yet through, and in spite of all these influences, the man Shylock is plainly to be seen, swayed though he is by hate, avarice and personal wrongs, yet guided by force of will, and by a keen, subtle, Jewish intellect.

In the transaction with Antonio and Bassanio he appears to be speaking with a double purpose-outwardly to assert his dignity, pride, and sense of the wrongs heaped upon him, inwardly to con his own advantages and possible means of revenge, however remote. But there is more than revenge implied in the result of the transaction; there is positive mercantile advantage. An enemy who has "hindered" him "half a million" is silenced by the coals of fire apparently heaped on his head; no longer can the voice and influence of Antonio work to the detriment of the trade plied by Shylock in the Rialto. Antonio is convinced that in signing the bond he has signed a treaty of peace; Shylock is invited to supper as a token of good will, and goes, hypocritically and reluctantly enough, after having spurned Bassanio's invitation to dinner before this ostensible treaty was concluded. Whether this advantage was a prime motive or not, he has certainly gained it, and it is hardly reasonable to suppose that the wily, astute Jew could have been unmindful of it in his eagerness to gain the other advantage of placing his enemy in his power, and establishing a remotely possible means of revenge. The results of this diplomacy are brought about with the consummate skill which not only a keen but a great intellect can command. A low usurer would have contented himself with a sharp bargain for the highest possible rate of interest on the best possible security, but Shylock takes "no doit of usance," foregoing the present advantage in the expectation of far greater advantage in the future. It is not necessary to go beyond this scene to catch the shrewd, subtle play of intellect, concentrated as it is in the apparently off-hand words

I say

To buy his favor I extend this friendship;
If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.

-I, iii, 169.

It is this very intellectual power, perhaps as much as pride of race,

or pride of purse, which gives to him the commanding presence we must accord. Through this entire scene there is a current of dignity and of independence amounting almost to hardihood when we remember, that, in spite of his fiercely muttered hate, he is held in check by the civility and servility of the money-lender to his customer, the Jew to the Christian. Something of independence may have been accorded to him from the fact that he appears to have been one of the Rothschilds of his day. Three thousand ducats in the days of Shakespeare was "a good round sum," and to the banker of to-day should mean not less than twenty-five thousand dollars. A Jewish banker who could hazard a sum like this naturally must have felt the power of his wealth, not only for his own honor, but, through him, for the honor of his And this pride is a strongly marked and clearly expressed feature-a pride in the very fact that he is in position at a moment's notice to lend this sum, and has the power, too, to lend it on a Christian's "single bond," without security or interest.

race.

I think it will always be found that we make a full acquaintance with Shakespeare's old men on their first appearance if at all. It is so with King Lear, and it is so with Shylock, the leading instances. In the few pages of Scene Third, Act First, Shylock, in all his characteristics is plainly revealed, and his motives are plainly marked. Such characteristics under the influence of such motives, may readily lead to tragical results, should occasion offer. We know that the words he has muttered in our hearing only,

If I can catch him once upon the hip,

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.

—I, iii, 47

still have a terrible significance for Antonio, though he knows it not. There is one tie besides money which still binds Shylock to life, one human staff on which he still can lean-an only daughter, whom he can trust with the keeping of his ducats and his jewels, even to the ring which, above all his other treasures, he prizes as the gift of his dead wife in the far back days of his bachelor youth. Jessica alone is left him. Watchfully solicitous for her good conduct, confident of her integrity, he looks upon her as the support and comfort of his age, while he rears her in seclusion after the straightest sect of the Israelites. But we see no parental tenderness on the one hand, no filial love on the other. She sees Christian revelry and social life at a distance, and longs for its pleasures with all the longing of restrained youth. Even the jesting Launcelot is about to leave her, and to him she confesses

Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,
Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.

-II, iii, 215.

Naturally enough, she falls in love with one of the gilded youth of

Venice, a Christian, and requires but little persuasion to fly with him from her father's house, and make him still more gilded with her father's ducats.

At this point the career of Shylock becomes a tragedy within an impending tragedy. Hitherto his wrongs have been such as he has outwardly borne with a patient shrug," but now these wrongs are but trifles to the calamity that has befallen him. The trusted daughter is a thief, has renounced her religion and her tribe, and has fled to be married to a Christian; even the precious ring, that sacred keepsake, is among the robber's spoils. To the Jewish mind these things make up the sum of all that can carry grief, shame, and a sense of outraged pride to the parental heart, and when he exclaims,

I would my daughter were dead at my foot and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin,

-III, i, 92.

it is as much parental grief as mourning over his losses that is manifested in his ravings. The curse has fallen upon his nation; there are no sighs but of his breathing; no tears but of his shedding. Antonio and his friends are at once uppermost in his mind as the agents and abettors of this crowning wrong of all. And just at this moment, so portentous of revenge, comes the rumor of Antonio's ruin, the possibility of the forfeiture of the bond. The intention to enforce this forfeiture is now fixed beyond a doubt; countless ducats are as nothing to him when weighed against the pound of his enemy's flesh. It is still the same Shylock we have seen, only intensified by the terrible purpose in view, and by the maddening influences which have led to this purpose. We call it a murderous intent, and so it is, but to him it is a legalized sacrifice for his revenge, a legalized retribution for his wrongs. A Jewish oath is registered to perform the deadly act; an officer is bespoken; the keen intellect is now bent upon fortifying his legal position, the commanding will lends all its force to the carrying out of this terrible design. I have seen him represented on the stage, in the trial scene, as almost overwhelmed by excitement and passion as he whets his knife, or produces the balances jingling in his trembling hands. I believe this to be a false representation.

or

What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?

My deeds upon my head!
I crave the law

-IV, i, 89, 206.

are words, among many others coming from his lips, which admit of but one interpretation. He is firm in the belief in his own right, and assured of his legal justification. The only mark of age to be portrayed here is dignity. His words carry with them a feeling of superiority over

the taunting Gratiano-really a feeling of equality with the Duke himself. When his own weapon, the letter of the law, is finally turned against him, then, and only then is he unmanned-completely and suddenly overwhelmed. From a dramatic point of view, it is the sudden extinction of the character, with all its grandeur of strength, and calls more for pity than for ridicule. Avaricious and revengeful though he was, he was more sinned against than sinning. Social ostracism had left him, as it leaves the Jew of to-day, in a position where money. was his only power outside of his tribe, and money-getting or nothing must be his trade, plied with a patient thrift and intelligence naturally ripening into avarice as his store increases, and as age crystallizes his habits of mind and of life. Subtly and terribly revengeful he was, but unspeakably maddening was his provocation.

If the popular magazine literature of the day is to be taken as a guide in the study of Shakespeare's characters, we shall soon find ourselves between Scylla and Charybdis in our search for the Shylock of Shakespeare. We are either to degrade him into a clown, or to canonize him as a saint, and if we have carefully read the Merchant of Venice, we shall find either of these a very hard thing to do. Our Scylla may be found in The Century for March, 1885, and our Charybdis in The Atlantic for April, 1886.

In the Century article an eminent divine treats of The Worship of Shakespeare as a dangerous idolatry of the nineteenth century, and speaks with the zeal of one who has made an important discovery for the benefit of his race. The authorities are numerous and concurrent from different points of view, each of which may be designated by a substantive ending in ism. There is Taine, the "naturalist," Jones Very, the "spiritualist," a certain "supernaturalist," nameless, but having serious objections to quotations from Shakespeare in the sermons of clergymen; and last, but greatest, Emerson himself whom we all know to be a grand old optimist, though he is not so designated. But the Sage of Concord is only quoted at the point where, after a dozen or more pages of grand broadness of vision, he, singularly enough, adds some two pages of unexplainable narrowness. These four authorities, fortifying the author's own opinion form what might be called an alembic, or perhaps more properly a Shakespeareometer, by which it is finally determined that "to purely spiritual insight, he (Shakespeare) "will ever seem defective. "The one awful example of the lengths to which the worship of Shakespeare may lead is found in the modern stage representations of the character of Shylock. "As originally designed," says the author, "Shylock was a secondary and incidental personage, intended to represent the comical aspects of the situation." Irving's personation of the character leads to the following reflections:

Would not the author of the play open his eyes in astonishment if he could see it