organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? if you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? revenge: If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? why, revenge. The villainy, you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. Gentlemen, my master Anthonio is at his house, and desires to speak with you both.

Salar.

respects of nations or of sects, is strongly, though indirectly, inculcated in this speech of the Jew's, which, according to this very principle, should be received without prejudice, though proceeding from the mouth of an Alien, and an Infidel.

6

MRS. GRIFFith.

-the same winter and summer,] Has been changed, from an obvious motive, by Sir T. Hanmer to-Summer and winter. E.

Salar. We have been up and down to seek

him.

Enter Tubal.

Salan. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be match'd,7 unless the devil himself turn Jew. [Exeunt Salar. and Salan. Shy. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa?

Hast thou found my daughter?

Tub. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

Shy. Why there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! the curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now:-two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels. I would, my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! 'would she were hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them! Why, so:—and I know not what's spent in the search: Why, then loss upon loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge: nor no ill luck stirring, but what lights o' my shoulders;

7

-a third cannot be match'd, &c.] This is, by a singular licence of expression, here put for cannot be found to match these. E.

shoulders; no sighs, but o' my breathing; no tears, but o' my shedding.

Tub. Yes, other men have ill luck too; Anthonio, as I heard in Genoa,—

Shy. What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck? Tub. Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.

Shy. I thank God, I thank God:-Is it true? is it true?

Tub. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.

Shy. I thank thee, good Tubal ;---Good news, good news: ha! ha!-Where? in Genoa ?

Tub. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night, fourscore ducats.8

Shy. Thou stick'st a dagger in me :—I shall never see my gold again: Fourscore ducats at a sitting fourscore ducats!

Tub.

8 Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night, fourscore ducats.] It may well be doubted whether the account here delivered by Tubal concerning the extravagant and giddy conduct of Jessica and her lover, after their flight, was intended by the poet to pass for truth, or only one of those vague and uncertain rumours, so frequently, in similar cases, transmitted from one person to another, with little, or no foundation: Such a proceeding does certainly not correspond with the notion, which, notwithstanding that some of the circumstances of her elopement cannot be justified, we have been previously induced to entertain of her character. E.

Tub There came divers of Anthonio's creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break,

Shy. I am very glad of it: I'll plague him ; I'll torture him; I am glad of it.

Tub. One of them shewed me a ring, that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

:

Shy. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor :9 I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkies.

9

Tub.

-it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor :] A turquoise is a precious stone found in the veins of the mountains on the confines of Persia to the east, subject to the Tartars. As Shylock had been married long enough to have a daughter grown up, it is plain he did not value this turquoise on account of the money for which he might hope to sell it, but merely in respect of the imaginary virtues formerly ascribed to the stone. It was said of the Turkey-stone, that it faded or brightened in its colour, as the health of the wearer increased or grew less. To this B. Jonson refers, in his Sejanus:

"And true as Turkise in my dear lord's ring, "Look well, or ill with him."

Again, in the Muses Elysium, by Drayton : "The turkesse, which who haps to wear, "Is often kept from peril."

Again, Edward Fenton in Secrete Wonders of Nature, b. 1. 4to, 1569. The Turkeys doth move when "there is any perill prepared to him that weareth it.” P. 51. b.

But

Tub. But Anthonio is certainly undone. Shy. Nay, that's true, that's very true: Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before: I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandize I will: Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.

[Exeunt.

- SCENE

But Leah (if we may believe Thomas Nicols, sometimes of Jesus College in Cambridge, in his Lapidary, &c.) might have presented Shylock with his turquoise for a better reason; as this stone" is "likewise said to take away all enmity, and to re"concile man and wife."

Other superstitious qualities are imputed to it, all of which were either monitory or preservative to the

wearer.

The same quality was supposed to be resident in coral. So, in the Three Ladies of London, 1584: "You may say jett will take up a straw, amber will make one fat,

"Coral will look pale when you be sick, and chry. stal will stanch blood."

Thus Holinshed, speaking of the death of K. John: "And when the king suspected them (the pears) to "be poisoned indeed, by reason that such precious "stones as he had about him cast forth a certain "sweat as it were bewraeing the poison," &c.

STEEVENS,