Especially, too, as it came from the pen

Of his poor friend himself on the wedding-day, -then, When the Parson had scarce shut his book up, and when The Clerk was yet uttering the final Ameu.

Dear Friend, it continued, "all's up with me-I

Have nothing on earth now to do but to die!

And, as death clears all scores, you're no longer my debtor; I should take it as kind

Could you come-never mind

If your love don't persuade you, why don't let this letter!.
I hardly need say this was scarcely read o'er
Ere a post-chaise and four

Was brought round to the door,

And Bassanio, though, doubtless, he thought it a bore,
Gave his Lady one kiss, and then started at score.
But scarce in his flight

Had he got out of sight,

"

When Portia, addressing a groom, said, My lad,
Journey must take on the instant to Padua,
Find out there Bellario, a Doctor of Laws,
Who, like Follett, is never left out of a cause,
And give him this note,

Which I've hastily wrote,

you a

Take the papers he'll give you- then push for the ferry
Below, where I'll meet you-you'll do 't in a wherry,
If you can't find a boat on the Brenta with sails to it-
-Stay-bring his gown too, and wig with three tails to it.»
Giovanni (that's Jack)

Brought out his hack,

Made a bow to his mistress, then jump'd on its back,
Put his hand to his hat, and was off in a crack.
The Signora soon follow'd, herself, taking as her
Own escort Nerissa her maid, and Balthazar.

The Court is prepared, the Lawyers are met,
The Judges all ranged, a terrible show!»
As Captain Macheath says, and when one's in debt,
The sight's as unpleasant a one as I know,
Yet still not so bad after all, I suppose,

As if, when one cannot discharge what one owes,
They could bid people cut off one's nose,

Yet here, a worse fate,

Stands Antonio, of late

A Merchant, might vie e'en with Princes in state,
With his waistcoat unbutton'd, prepared for the knife,
Which, in taking a pound of flesh, must take his life;
On other side Shylock, his bag on the floor,
And three shocking bad hats on his head as before,
Imperturbable stands,

As he waits their commands,

With his scales and his great snicker-snee in his hands;
Between them, equipt in a wig, gown, and bands,
With a very smooth face a young dandified Lawyer,
Though his hopes are but feeble,

And, in lieu of his three thousand ducats take nine,
Which Bassanio, for reasons we well may divine,
Shows in so many bags all drawn up in a line.
But vain are all efforts to soften him-still
He points to the bond

He so often has conn'd,

And says in plain terms he'll be shot if he will.
So the dandified Lawyer, with talking grown hoarse,
Says, I can say no more-let the law take its course. »

Just fancy the gleam of the eye of the Jew,
As he sharpen'd his knife on the sole of his shoe
From the toe to the heel,

And grasping the steel,

With a business-like air was beginning to feel
Whereabouts he should cut, as a butcher would veal,
When the dandified Judge puts a spoke in his wheel.
Stay, Shylock,» says he,

"

Here's one thing-you see

This bond of yours gives you here no jot of blood!

-The words are 'A pound of flesh,'-that's clear as mud-
Slice away, then, old fellow-but mind!-if you spill
One drop of his claret that's not in your bill,
I'll hang you like Haman!-By Jingo I will!»

When apprized of this flaw,

You never yet saw

Such an awfully mark'd elongation of jaw

་་

As in Shylock, who cried. Plesh ma heart! ish dat law?»-Off went his three hats,

And he look'd as the cats

Do, whenever a mouse has escaped from their claw.

-Ish 't the law?- why the thing won't admit of a query

There's no doubt of the fact,

Only look at the act;

Acto quinto, cap: tertio, Dogi Falieri

Nay, if, rather than cut, you'd relinquish the debt,
The Law, Master Shy, has a hold on you yet,
See Foscari's statutes at large-'If a stranger
A citizen's life shall, with malice, endanger,
The whole of his property, little or great,
Shall go, on conviction, one half to the State,
And one to the person pursued by his hate;
And, not to create

Any farther debate,

The Doge, if he pleases, may cut off his pate.
So down on your marrowbones, Jew, and ask mercy!
Defendant and Plaintiff are now wisy wersy.»
What need to declare

How pleased they all were

At so joyful an end to so sad an affair?

Or Bassanio's delight at the turn things had taken,
His friend having saved, to the letter, his bacon?

How Shylock got shaved, and turn'd Christian, though late,

To save a life-int'rest in half his estate?

How the dandified Lawyer, who'd managed the thing,
Would not take any fee for his pains but a ring,
Which Mrs. Bassanio had giv'n to her spouse,

With injunctions to keep it, on leaving the house?
How when he, and the spark

Who appeared as his clerk,

Had thrown off their wigs, and their gowns, and their jetty coats,
There stood Nerissa and Portia in petticoats?

How they pouted and flouted, and acted the cruel,
Because Lord Bassanio had not kept his jewel?

How they scolded, and broke out,

Till, having their joke out,

They kissed, and were friends, and all blessing and blessed,
Drove home by the light

Of a moonshiny night,

Like the one in which Troilus, the brave Trojan knight,
Sat astride on a wall, and sigh'd after his Cressid?

All this, if't were meet,

I'd go on to repeat,

But a story spun out so's by no means a treat,
So, I'll merely relate what, in spite of the pains
I have taken to rummage among his remains,
No edition of Shakspeare, I've met with, contains ;
But, if the account which I've heard be the true one,
We shall have it, no doubt, before long, in a new one.

In an MS., then, sold,

For its full weight in gold,

And knock'd down to my friend, Lord Tomnoddy, I'm told It's recorded that Jessy, coquettish and vain,

Gave her husband, Lorenzo, a good deal of pain;

Being mildly rebuked, she levanted again,

Ran away with a Scotchman, and, crossing the main,
Became known by the name of the « Flower of Dumblane.»

That Antonio, whose piety caused, as we've seen,
Him to spit upon every old Jew's gaberdine,
And whose goodness to paint

All colours were faint,

Acquired the well-merited prefix of «< Saint,»
And the Doge, his admirer, of honour the fount,
Having given him a patent, and made him a Count,
He went over to England, got natʼralis'd there,
And espous'd a rich heiress in Hanover Square.
That Shylock came with him, no longer a Jew,
But converted, I think may be possibly true,
But that Walpole, as these self-same papers aver,
By changing the y in his name into er,

Should allow him a fictitious surname to dish up,
And in Seventeen-twenty-eight make him a Bishop,
I cannot believe - but shall still think them two men
Till some sage proves the fact « with his usual acumen.»

MORAL.

From this tale of the Bard

It's uncommonly hard

If an Editor can't draw a moral. - 'Tis clear,

Then, In ev'ry young wife-seeking Bachelor's ear

-

A maxim, 'bove all other stories, this one drums,

« PITCH GREEK TO OLD HARRY, AND STICK TO CONUNDRUMS!! »

To new-married Ladies this lesson it teaches,

«You're 'no that far wrong'in assuming the breeches! »

Monied men upon 'Change, and rich Merchants it schools
To look well to assets -nor play with edge-tools!

Last of all, this remarkable History shows men,

What caution they need when they deal with old-clothes-men!

So bid John and Mary

To mind and be wary,

And never let one of them come down the are'!

Tappington, April 1.

T. I.

MISCELLANEA.

YOUNG AND Delcambre's typE-COMPOSING MACHINE.

The type-composing apparatus we are about to describe to our readers is similar in principle to that which was brought out about a year and a half ago, by the same parties, and excited at that time a considerable sensation; (see Mec. Mag. vol. xxxiv. p. 319) but so wonderfully simplified and improved in all its details as to be in effect quite a new machine. With a spirit and perseverance deserving of the highest praise, the patentees, Messrs. Young and Delcambre, have gone on surmounting difficulty after difficulty, till at length they have produced a machine which effectually accomplishes nearly all they had in view, while it is wholly free from that multifariousness and complexity, which were said, not untruly, to characterize their first attempts. The machine of itself will not set up types in a state fit for printing from, for that is not what the inventors ever proposed it should do'; but it will facilitate the art of composition so as to enable that to be done by the labour of females and children, which is now performed by the hands and heads of able-bodied men of good education, and done, too, a great deal quicker. Some things there may be to which it is not equal, with manual aid of any sort; as, for example, the setting up of pages in a number of different characters, as Roman, Italic, Greek, &c., or the setting up of