Por. Why doth the Jew pause'? take thy forfeiture.
Shy. Give me my principal, and let me go.
Bas. I have it ready for thee; here it is.
Por. He hath refused it in the open court;
He shall have merely justice, and his bond.

Gra. A Daniel, still say I! a second Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
Shy. Shall I not have barely my principal'?
Por. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture,
To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.

Shy. Why, then the devil give him good of it!
I'll stay no longer question.

Por. Tarry, Jew;

The law hath yet another hold on you.

It is enacted in the laws of Venice,

If it be proved against an alien,

That, by direct or indirect attempts,

He seek the life of any citizen,

The party, 'gainst the which he doth contrive,
Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
And the offender's life lies in the mercy
Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice.
In which predicament, I say, thou standest;
For it appears, by manifest proceeding,
That indirectly, and directly too,
Thou hast contrived against the very life
Of the defendant; and thou hast incurred

The danger formerly by me rehearsed.

Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke.

Gra. Beg, that thou may'st have leave to hang thyself; And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,

Thou hast not left the value of a cord;

Therefore thou must be hanged at the state's charge.

Duke. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,

I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.

For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's ;

The other half comes to the general state.

LES. IV. THE CHARACTER OF PORTIA, AS DISPLAYED IN

THE TRIAL SCENE.

1. ALL the finest points of Portia's character are brought to bear in the trial scene which we have just read. There she shines forth all her divine self. Her intellectual powers, her high honorable principles, her best feelings as a woman, are all displayed. She maintains at first a calm self-command, as one sure of carrying her point in the end; yet the painful, heart-thrilling uncertainty in which she keeps the whole court,

until suspense verges upon agony, is not for effect merely; it is necessary and inevitable.

2. She has two objects in view: to deliver her husband's friend, and to maintain her husband's honor by the discharge of his just debt, though paid out of her own wealth ten times over. She must be understood, from the beginning to the end, as examining with intense anxiety the effect of her words on the mind and countenance of the Jew; as watching for that relenting spirit which she hopes to awaken either by reason or persuasion.

3. She begins by an appeal to his mercy, in that matchless piece of eloquence which, with an irresistible and solemn pathos, falls upon the heart like "gentle dew from heaven:" but in vain; for that blessed dew drops not more fruitless and unfelt on the parched sand of the desert than do these heavenly words upon the ear of Shylock. She next attacks his avarice:

"Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee!" Then she appeals, in the same breath, both to his avarice and his pity:

"Be merciful!

Take thrice thy money. Bid me tear the bond."

4. All that she says afterward-her strong expressions, which are calculated to strike a shuddering horror through the nerves-the reflections she interposes-her delays and circumlocution, to give time for any latent feeling of commiseration to display itself-all, all are premeditated, and tend in the same manner to the object she has in view. Thus:

"You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
Therefore lay bare your bosom !"

These two speeches, though apparently addressed to Antonio, are spoken at Shylock, and are evidently intended to penetrate his bosom. In the same spirit she asks for the balance to weigh the pound of flesh, and entreats of Shylock to have a surgeon ready:

"Have by some surgeon', Shylock', on your charge,
To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed' to death!
Shylock. Is it so nominated in the bond'?

Portia. It is not so expressed-but what of that?
'Twere good you do so much, for charity."

5. So unwilling is her sanguine and generous spirit to resign all hope, or to believe that humanity is absolutely extinct in the bosom of the Jew, that she calls on Antonio, as a last resource, to speak for himself. His gentle, yet manly resignation-the deep pathos of his farewell, and the affectionate allusion to herself in his last address to Bassanio

"Commend me to your honorable wife'!

Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death," etc.—

are well calculated to swell that emotion which, through the whole scene, must have been laboring suppressed within her heart.

6. At length the crisis arrives, for patience and womanhood can endure no longer; and when Shylock, carrying his savage bent "to the last hour of act," springs on his victim-" A sentence! come, prepare!" then the smothered scorn, indignation, and disgust burst forth with an impetuosity which interfere with the judicial solemnity she had at first affected, particularly in the speech,

"Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.

Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less, nor more,
But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak'st more,
Or less, than a just pound-be it but so much
As makes it light or heavy in the substance',
Or the division of the twentieth part

Of one poor scruple'; nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair',

Thou diest', and all thy goods are confiscate."

But she afterward recovers her propriety, and triumphs with a cooler scorn and a more self-possessed exultation.

7. It is clear that, to feel the full force and dramatic beauty of this marvelous scene, we must go along with Portia as well as with Shylock; we must understand her concealed purpose, keep in mind her noble motives, and pursue in our fancy the under-current of feeling working in her mind throughout. The terror and the power of Shylock's character his deadly and inexorable malice-would be too oppressive, the pain and pity too intolerable, and the horror of the possible issue too overwhelming, but for the intellectual relief afforded by this double source of interest and contemplation. MRS. JAMESON.

LESSON V.-THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.

1. A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depth of his cell with his stone-covered floor,
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,
Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain;
But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers
We know not; indeed, 'tis no business of ours.

2. Perhaps it was only by patience and care,

At last, that he brought his invention to bear:

In youth 'twas projected, but years stole away,

And ere 'twas complete he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure unless energy fails;

And, at length, he produced THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES.

3. "What were they'?" you ask; you shall presently see:
These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea;
Oh no; for such properties wondrous had they,
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh;
Together with articles small or immense,

From mountains or planets to atoms of sense.

4. Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay,
And naught so ethereal but there it would stay,
And naught so reluctant but in it must go-

All which some examples more clearly will show.
5. The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire,
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there;
As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf,
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell,
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.

6. One time he put in Alexander the Great,

With the garment that Dorcas had made, for a weight,
And, though clad in armor from sandals to crown,
The hero rose up, and the garment went down.

7. A long row of alms-houses, amply endowed
By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,
Next loaded one scale; while the other was pressed
By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest;
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,

And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce.

8. By further experiments (no matter how),

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plow;
A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale,
Though balanced by only a tenpenny nail;
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.

9. A lord and a lady went up at full sail,

When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale;
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,
Ten counselors' wigs, full of powder and curl,
All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence,
Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;
A first water diamond, with brilliants begirt,

Than one good potato just washed from the dirt;

Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice

One pearl to outweigh-'twas THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE. 10. Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate, With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight, When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff, That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof! When balanced in air, it ascended on high,

And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky;

While the scale with the soul in 't so mightily fell,

That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.-JANE TAYLOR.