5

in the middle of its hall of paintings-on the Surrey side of the Thames. An alteration of "The Merchant of Venice," made by Lord Lansdowne, and first acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was published in 1701; and this held the stage till 1741, when Macklin effected his restoration of Shylock. Lord Lansdowne's piece begins with a prologue, in which the ghosts of Shakespeare and Dryden rise, crowned with laurel; and its second act contains a musical masque, called Peleus and Thetis. A banquet scene is also introduced, in which the Jew, seated at a separate table, drinks to his Money as his Only Mistress. Shylock, which in that version was acted by Thomas Doggett [- 1721], was made a comic character, and wore a red wig. Macklin's great performance reinstated the part as one of tragical conception, and had the effect of banishing Lansdowne's distortion forever from the stage. John Philip Kemble made an acting copy of "The Merchant of Venice,"_in_1795. The original representative of Shylock was Burbagewho dressed it in a red wig and a false nose. Shylock has been greatly acted by Henderson, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, and Junius Brutus Booth. Of Kean in Shylock-in which part, at Drury Lane, he made his first great hit [January 26th, 1814], Douglas Jerrold used to say that he impressed his audience “like a chapter of Genesis." "The elder Booth's Shylock," says Gould, was the representative Hebrew," "a type of the religion of the law," and instinct with "the might of a people whom neither time, nor scorn, nor political oppression could subdue." Bogumil Dawison, on the German stage, was famous as the Jew; and the Shylock of James W. Wallack, likewise, is memorable among the most affecting personations that have graced the stage in this century.

66

New-York, October 30th, 1878.

W. W.

She was a form of life and light
That seen became a part of sight,
And rose, where'er turned mine eye,
The morning-star of memory."-BYRON.

"Sweet pain of love, bind thou with fetters fleet
The heart that on the dew of hope must pine."-Goethe.

O happy hour! and happier hours
Await them. Many a merry face

Salutes them,-maidens of the place,

That pelt us in the porch with flowers."-TENNYSON.

"The hunted fox, the tortured wild-cat, loves its young-the despised and persecuted race of Abraham love their children

*

*

*

When the day comes, and I ask my own, then what hear I but damned Jew, and the curse of Egypt on your tribe."-SCOTT.

"He hath his armour on

I am his sword, shield, helm; I but enclose

Myself, and my own heart, and heart's blood, when

I thus encompass him

*

Each for the other thus,

*

And in that other for his dearer self."

BANIM

IN "DAMON AND PYTHIAS."

"Anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me.

I was sure that he could not live, after that he was fallen."— II. SAMUEL, i. 9-10.

"In Belmont is a lady richly left,

And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages :

Her name is Portia."

"It was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called *

*

* He, of all the

men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady."

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours, my lord."

"My daughter!-O my ducats !—O my daughter!
Fled with a Christian? O my Christian ducats! —
Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter."

"A bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was used to come so smug upon the mart.— Let him look to his bond!"

Repent not you that you shall lose your friend,
And he repents not that he pays your debt;
For, if the few do cut but deep enough,
I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.'

"He shall have merely justice, and his bond."

DUKE OF VENICE.

ANTONIO, the Merchant of Venice, Friend to Bassanio.
BASSANIO, Friend to Antonio.

TUBAL, a Jew, Friend to Shylock.
LAUNCELOT GOBBO, Servant to Shylock.

OLD GOBBO, Father to Launcelot.

LEONARDO, Servant to Bassanio.

BALTHAZAR, Servant to Portia.

PORTIA, a rich Heiress.

NERISSA, her Friend and Companion.

JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock.

MAGNIFICOES OF VENICE, OFFICERS OF THE COURT OF

JUSTICE, LORDS, LADIES and ATTENDANTS.

SCENE.-Partly in Venice, and partly at Portia's villa, named

Belmont, on the adjacent main-land.

PERIOD.-The Sixteenth Century.

TIME OF ACTION.-A little more than three months.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you:
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 't is made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salarino.

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Solanio.

Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad.