with shoulder-flaps almost to the elbow, and fastened by one or more buttons down the arm (axillaris). Both descriptions hung in folds to the feet, which were protected by a very simple sandal (solea or crepida). Over the tunic was worn the heplum, a square cloth or veil fastened to the shoulders and hanging over the bosom as low as the zone (tænia or strophum) which confined the tunic just beneath the bust. Athenian women of high rank wore hair-pins (one ornamented with a cicada or grasshopper, is engraved in Hope's 'Costume of the Ancients,' Plate 138), ribands or fillest, wreaths of flowers, &c. The hair of both sexes was worn in long, formal ringlets, either of a flat and zigzagged or of a round and corkscrew shape. The lower orders of Greeks were clad in a short tunic of coarse materials; over which slaves wore a sort of leathern jacket, called diphthera; slaves were also distinguished from free men by their hair being closely shorn. The Amazons are generally represented on the Etruscan vases in short embroidered tunics with sleeves to the wrist (the peculiar distinction of Asiatic or barbaric nations), pantaloons, ornamented with stars and flowers to correspond with the tunic, the chlamys, or short military cloak, and the Phrygian cap or bonnet. Hippolyta is seen so attired on horseback contending with Theseus. Vide Hope's 'Costumes.' THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,' like 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' was first printed in 1600; and it had a further similarity to that play from the circumstance of two editions appearing in the same year-the one bearing the name of a publisher, Thomas Heyes, the other that of a printer, J. Roberts. The play was not reprinted till it appeared in the folio of 1623. In that edition there are a few variations from the quartos. All these editions present the internal evidence of having been printed from correct copies. "The Merchant of Venice' is one of the plays of Shakspere mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598, and it is the last mentioned in his list. Stephen Gosson, who, in 1579, was moved to publish a tract called 'The School of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, players, jesters, and such like caterpillars of the commonwealth,' thus describes a play of his time:-"The Jew, shown at the Bull, representing the greedyness of worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers." Whatever might have been the plot of 'The Jew' mentioned by Gosson, the story of the bond was ready to Shakspere's hand, in a ballad to which Warton first drew attention. He considers that the bal lad was written before The Merchant of Venice.' But this ballad of Gernutus' wants that remarkable feature of the play, the intervention of Portia to save the life of the Merchant; and this, to our minds, is the strongest confirmation that the ballad preceded the comedy. Shakspere found that incident in the source from which the balladwriter professed to derive his history :"In Venice towne not long agoe, A cruel Jew did dwell, Which lived all on usurie, As Italian writers tell." It was from an Ialian writer, Ser Giovanni, the author of a collection of tales called 'n Pecorone,' written in the fourteenth century, and first published at Milan in 1558, that Shakspere unquestionably derived some of the incidents of his story, although he might be familiar with another version of the same tale. "It is well known," says Mrs. Jameson, "that The Merchant of Venice' is founded on two different tales; and in weaving together his double plot in so masterly a manner, Shakspere has rejected altogether the character of the astutious lady of Belmont, with her magic potions, who figures in the Italian novel. With yet more refinement, he has and the lowly, the learned and the igno- "There was in Asie, in a gret citee, It was scarcely to be avoided in those times that even Chaucer, the most genuine and natural of poets, should lend his great powers to the support of the popular belief that Jews ought to be proscribed as In dealing with the truly dramatic subject of the forfeiture of the bond, Shakspere had to choose between one of two courses that lay open before him. The 'Gesta Romanorum' did not surround the debtor and the creditor with any prejudices. We hear nothing "Hateful to Crist, and to his compagnie." of one being a Jew, the other a Christian. But we ought to expect better things when There is a remarkable story told by Gregorio we reach the times in which the principles Leti, in his 'Life of Pope Sixtus the Fifth,' of religious liberty were at least germinated. in which the debtor and creditor of The And yet what a play is Marlowe's 'Jew of Merchant of Venice' change places. The Malta,'-undoubtedly one of the most popudebtor is the Jew, the revengeful creditor lar plays even of Shakspere's day, judging the Christian; and this incident is said to as we may from the number of performances have happened at Rome in the time of Sir recorded in Henslowe's papers! That drama, Francis Drake. This, no doubt, was a pure as compared with the 'Merchant of Venice,' fiction of Leti, whose narratives are by no has been described by Charles Lamb, with means to be received as authorities; but it his usual felicity:-"Marlowe's Jew does not shows that he felt the intolerance of the old approach so near to Shakspere's as his story, and endeavoured to correct it, though Edward II. Shylock, in the midst of his in a very inartificial manner. Shakspere savage purpose, is a man. His motives, took the story as he found it in those narra- feelings, resentments, have something human tives which represented the popular preju- in them. 'If you wrong us, shall we not dice. If he had not before him the ballad revenge?' Barabas is a mere monster, of 'Gernutus' (upon which point it is difficult brought in with a large painted nose, to to decide), he had certainly access to the tale please the rabble. He kills in sport-poisons of the 'Pecorone.' If he had made the con- whole nunneries-invents infernal machines. test connected with the story of the bond He is just such an exhibition as, a century between two of the same faith, he would or two earlier, might have been played before have lost the most powerful hold which the the Londoners, by the Royal command, when subject possessed upon the feelings of an a general pillage and massacre of the Heaudience two centuries and a half ago. If brews had been previously resolved on in he had gone directly counter to those feel the cabinet." "The Jew of Malta' was ings (supposing that the story which Leti written essentially upon an intolerant printells had been known to him, as some have ciple. The Merchant of Venice,' whilst it supposed), his comedy would have been seized upon the prejudices of the multitude, hooted from the stage. and dealt with them as a foregone conclusion by which the whole dramatic action was to be governed, had the intention of making those prejudices as hateful as the reaction of cruelty and revenge of which they are the "The Prioress's Tale' of Chaucer belonged to the period when the Jews were robbed, maimed, banished, and most foully vilified, with the universal consent of the powerful a Characteristics of Women,' vol. i., p. 72. cause. PERSONS REPRESENTED. VENICE. et IV. sc. 1. ON, suitor to Portia. Act II. sc. 9. co, suitor to Portia. II. sc. 1; sc. 7. rchant of Venice. Act II. sc. 6. Act III. sc. 3. end to Antonio. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. ntonio and Bassanio. . Act II. sc. 4; sc. 8. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Antonio and Bassanio. et II. sc. 4; sc. 6; sc. 8. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Antonio and Bassanio. et II. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 6. ic. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. ve with Jessica. Act II. sc. 4; sc. 6. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1. , a Jew. I. sc. 5. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. '. sc. 1. TUBAL, a Jew, friend to Shylock. LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock. Appears, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1. Old GOBBO, father to Launcelot. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. BALTHAZAR, servant to Portia. Appears, Act III. sc. 4. STEPHANO, servant to Portia. Appears, Act V. sc. 1. PORTIA, a rich heiress. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 7; sc. 9. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1. NERISSA, waiting-maid to Portia. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 7; sc. 9. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. I. JESSICA, daughter to Shylock. Appears, Act II. sc. 3; sc. 5; sc. 6. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act V. sc. 1. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants. LY AT VENICE; AND PARTLY AT BELMONT, THE SEAT OF PORTIA, ON THE CONTINENT. Salarino. Nothing can b and Solanio are indicated in t any enumeration of characte Solanio, and Salino. Further nity of a distinct character and there is no reason what But if there be confusion ev prefixed to the speeches are he immediately turns into finally Sal. We have adop of one abbreviation for an the usual assignment of t quarto, which in this part appear to have exercised Solanio alternate speeche cidedly meant for the liv |