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PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THE reader will find a distinct epitome of the novels from which the story of this play is supposed to be taken, at the conclusion of the notes. It should, however, be remembered, that if our poet was at all indebted to the Italian novelists, it must have been through the medium of some old translation, which has hitherto escaped the researches of his most industrious editors.

It appears from a passage in Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse, &c. 1579, that a play, comprehending the distinct plots of Shakspeare's Merchant of Venice, had been exhibited long before he commenced a writer, viz. "The Jew shown at the Bull, representing the greediness of worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers."-" These plays," says Gosson, (for he mentions others with it)" are goode and sweete plays," &c. It is therefore not improbable that Shakspeare new-wrote his piece, on the model already mentioned, and that the elder performance, being inferior, was permitted to drop silently into oblivion.

This play of Shakspeare had been exhibited before the year 1598, as appears from Meres's Wits Treasury, where it is mentioned with eleven more of our author's pieces. It was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, July 22, in the same year. It could not have been printed earlier, because it was not yet licensed. The old song of Gernutus the Jew of Venice, is published by Dr. Percy in the first volume of his reliques of Ancient English Poetry and the ballad intituled, The murtherous Lyfe and terrible Death of the rich Jewe of Malta; and the tragedy on the same subject, were both entered on the Stationers' books, May, 1594. STEEVENS.

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The story was taken from an old translation of The Gesta Romanorum, first printed by Wynkyn de Worde. The book was very popular, and Shakspeare has closely copied some of the language: an additional argument, if we wanted it, of his track of reading. Three vessels are exhibited to a lady for her choiceThe first was made of pure gold, well beset with precious stones without, and within full of dead men's bones; and thereupon was engraven this posie: Whoso chuseth me, shall find that he deserveth. The second vessel was made of fine silver, filled with earth and worms; the superscription thus: Whoso chuseth me, shall find that his nature desireth. The third vessel was made of

lead, full within of precious stones, and thereupon was insculpt this posie: Whoso chuseth me, shall find that God hath disposed for him. The lady, after a comment upon each, chuses the leaden vessel.

In a MS. of Lidgate, belonging to my very learned friend, Dr. Askew, I find a Tale of Two Merchants of Egipt and of Baldad, ex Gestis Romanorum. Leland, therefore, could not be the original author, as Bishop Tanner suspected. He lived a century after Lidgate. FARMER.

The two principal incidents of this play are to be found separately in a collection of odd stories, which were very popular, at least five hundred years ago, under the title of Gesta Romanorum. The first, Of the Bond, is in ch. xlviii. of the copy which I chuse to refer to, as the completest of any which I have yet seen. MS. Harl. n. 2270. A knight there borrows money of a merchant, upon condition of forfeiting all his flesh for nonpayment. When the penalty is exacted before the judge, the knight's mistress, disguised, in forma viri et vestimentis pretiosis induta, comes into court, and, by permission of the judge, endeavours to mollify the merchant. She first offers him his money, and then the double of it, &c. to all which his answer is-" Conventionem meam volo habere.-Puella, cum hoc audisset, ait coram omnibus, Domine mi judex, da rectum judicium super his vobis dixero.-Vos scitis quod miles nunquam se obligaquæ bat ad aliud per literam nisi quod mercator habeat potestatem carnes ab ossibus scindere, sine sanguinis effusione, de quo nihil erat prolocutum. Statim mittat manum in eum; si vero sanguinem effuderit, Rex contra eum actionem habet. Mercator, cum hoc audisset, ait; date mihi pecuniam et omnem actionem ei remitto. Ait puella, Amen dico tibi, nullum denarium habebispone ergo manum in eum, ita ut sanguinem non effundas. Mercator vero videns se confusum, abscessit; et sic vita militis salvata est, et nullum denarium dedit."

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The other incident, of the caskets, is in ch. xcix. of the same collection. A king of Apulia sends his daughter to be married to the son of an emperor of Rome. After some adventures, (which are nothing to the present purpose,) she is brought before the emperor; who says to her, Puella, propter amorem filii mei multa adversa sustinuisti. Tamen si digna fueris ut uxor ejus sis cito probabo. Et fecit fieri tria vasa. PRIMUM fuit de auro purissimo et lapidibus pretiosis interius ex omni parte, et plenum ossibus mortuorum: et exterius erat subscriptio; Qui me elegerit, in me inveniet quod meruit. SECUNDUM vas erat de argento puro et gemmis pretiosis, plenum terra; et exterius erat subscriptio: Qui me elegerit, in me inveniet quod natura appetit. TERTIUM vas de plumbo plenum lapidibus pretiosis enterius et gemmis nobilissimis; et exterius erat subscriptio talis: Qui me elegerit, in me

inveniet quod Deus disposuit. Ista tria ostendit puellæ, et dixit, Si unum ex istis elegeris in quo commodum, et proficuum est, filium meum habebis. Si vero elegeris quod nec tibi nec aliis est commodum, ipsum non habebis." The young lady, after mature consideration of the vessels and their inscriptions, chuses the leaden, which being opened, and found to be full of gold and precious stones, the emperor says: "Bona puella, bene elegisti―ideo filium meum habebis."

From this abstract of these two stories, I think it appears sufficiently plain that they are the remote originals of the two incidents in this play. That of the caskets, Shakspeare might take from the English Gesta Romanorum, as Dr, Farmer has observed; and that of the bond might come to him from the Pecorone; but upon the whole I am rather inclined to suspect, that he has followed some hitherto unknown novellist, who had saved him the trouble of working up the two stories into one, TYRWHITT.

This comedy, I believe, was written in the year 1594. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays. MALONE.

Duke of Venice.

Prince of Morocco,

Prince of Arragon,

Suitors to Portia.

ANTONIO, the merchant of Venice:

BASSANIO, his friend.

SALANIO 2,

SALARINO, Friends to Antonio and Bassanio.

GRATIANO,

LORENZO, in love with Jessica.

SHYLOCK, a Jew:

TUBAL, a Jew, his friend.

LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock.

OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot.

SALERIO3, a messenger from Venice.

LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio.

BALTHAZAR,

STEPHANO,

Servants to Portia.

PORTIA, a rich heiress.

NERISSA, her waiting-maid.

JESSICA, daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Jailer, Servants, and other Attendants.

SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent.

In the old editions in quarto, for J. Roberts, 1600, and in the old folio, 1623, there is no enumeration of the persons. was first made by Mr. Rowe. JOHNSON.

It

2 It is not easy to determine the orthography of this name. In the old editions the owner of it is called-Salanio, Salino, and Solanio.

STEEVENS.

3 This character I have restored to the Persona Dramatis. The name appears in the first folio: the description is taken from the quarto. STEEVENS.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Venice. A Street.

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.
ANT. 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 'tis 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.

SALAR. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,-—

4-argosies] A name given in our author's time to ships of great burthen, probably galleons, such as the Spaniards now use in their West India trade. JOHNSON.

In Ricaut's Maxims of Turkish Polity, ch. xiv. it is said, "Those vast carracks called argosies, which are so much famed for the vastness of their burthen and bulk, were corruptly so denominated from Ragosies," i. e. ships of Ragusa, a city and territory on the gulf of Venice, tributary to the Porte. If my memory does not fail me, the Ragusans lent their last great ship to the King of Spain for the Armada, and it was lost on the coast of Ireland. Shakspeare, as Mr. Heath observes, has given the name of Ragozine to the pirate in Measure for Measure.

STEEVENS.

Argosies are properly defined to be "ships of great burthen," and so they are described almost wherever they are mentioned, Mr. Steevens has quoted Rycaut's Maxims of Turkish Polity, to shew that the term originated in a corruption of Ragosies, i. e. ships of Ragusa. However specious this may appear, it is to be observed that Rycaut, a writer at the end of the seventeenth

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