And when the tale is told, bid her be judge,
Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
Repent not you, that you shall lose your friend,
And he repents not, that he pays your debt;
For, if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.

BASS. Antonio, I am married to a wife,
Which is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil to deliver you.

POR. Your wite would give you little thanks for that, If she were by, to hear you make the offer.

GRA. I have a wife, whom, I protest, I love.

I would she were in heaven, so she could

Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.
NER. "Tis well you offer it behind her back;
The wish would make else an unquiet house.

SHY. These be the Christian husbands: I have a daughter;

Would, any of the stock of Barabbas

Had been her husband, rather than a Christian! (aside.) We trifle time; I pray thee, pursue sentence.

POR. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine; The court awards it, and the law doth give it.

SHY. Most rightful judge!

POR. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast; The law allows it, and the court awards it.

SHY. Most learned judge!-A sentence; come, prepare. POR. Tarry a little :-there is something else.This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are, a pound of flesh :

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;

But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate

Unto the state of Venice.

GRA. O upright judge !—Mark, Jew,—O learned judge! SHY. Is that the law?

POR. Thyself shall see the act:

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured,

Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest.

GRA. O learned judge!-Mark, Jew;-a learned judge!

SHY. I take this offer then,-pay the bond thrice

And let the Christian go.

BASS. Here is the money.
POR. Soft;

The Jew shall have all justice ;-soft!-no haste ;-
He shall have nothing but the penalty.

GRA. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!
POR. 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 takest more.
Or less, than just a 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 tu
But in the estimation of a hair,

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscat
GRA. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!

Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.

POR. Why doth the Jew pause? take thy forfeiture.
SHY. Give me my principal, and let me go.
BASS. 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 stand'st ·
For it appears by manifest proceeding,
That, indirectly, and directly too,
Thou hast contrived against the very life
Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd
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 hang'd 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,
Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.
POR. Ay, for the State; not for Antonio.
SHY. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that:
You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live.

POR. What mercy can you render him, Antonio? GRA. A halter gratis, nothing else, for God's sake. ANT. So please, my lord, the duke, and all the court, To quit this fine for one half of his goods;

I am content, so he will let me have
The other half in use,-to render it,
Upon his death, unto the gentleman
That lately stole his daughter:

Two things provided more,-That, for this favor,
He presently become a Christian;

The other, that he do record a gift,

Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd,

Unto his son Lorenzo, and his daughter.

DUKE. He shall do this; or else I do recant

The pardon that I late pronounced here.

POR. Art thou contented, Jew? what dost thou say? SHY. I am content.

POR. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.

SHY. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence⚫ I am not well; send the deed after me

And I will sign it.

DUKE. Get thee gone, but do it.

GRA. In christening thou shalt have two godfathe Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more To bring thee to the gallows, not the font.

[Exit SHYLO DUKE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner. POR. I humbly do desire your grace of pardon:

I must away this night toward Padu

And it is meet I presently set forth.

DUKE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not Antonio, gratify this gentleman;

For, in my mind, you are much bound to him.

[Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOS, and TRAIN,

MARCELIA.

BARRY CORNWALL.

[This fine specimen of musical blank verse sounds exceedingly well in recitation. While it should be spoken in rather a mournful, sad key, care should be taken not to fall into a monotonous chant.!

IT was a dreary place. The shallow brook,

That ran throughout the wood, there took a turn.
And widened: all its music died away,
And in the place a silent eddy told

That there the stream grew deeper.

There dark trees

Funereal (cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,
And spicy cedar) clustered, and at night

Shook from their melancholy branches sounds

And sighs like death: 't was strange, for through the day They stood quite motionless, and looked, methought,

Like monumental things, which the sad earth

From its green bosom had cast out in pity,

To mark a young girl's grave.

The very leaves

Disowned their natural green, and took a black
And mournful hue; and the rough brier, stretching
His straggling arms across the rivulet,

Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching,

With his tenacious leaf, straws. withered boughs,

Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which
Swam with the current, and with these it hid
The poor Marcelia's death-bed.

Never may net

Of venturous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shortened breath
The brook, and panting flies the unholy place,
And the white heifer lows, and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream.

And yet I love

To loiter there: and when the rising moon

1

Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the evening mists,
And checkered, as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen,
And fancy to myself that a sad voice,

Praying comes moaning through the leaves, as 't were
For some misdeed.

The story goes-that some

Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world

Frowned upon) once strayed thither, and 't was thought
Cast herself in the stream: you may have heard
Of one Marcelia, poor Nolina's daughter, who
Fell ill and came to want? O, no! she loved
A wealthy man, who marked her not! He wed,
And then the girl grew sick, and pined away,
And drowned herself for love.

MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

COWPER.

[Of the many delightful poems crystalised into immortality by the genius of this great poet and most unhappy man-not one is more beautiful than this. So exquisitely has he portrayed all the feelings of an affectionate son, that the Speaker has but to imagine himself in the writer's situation to deliver the lines with effect and heartfelt feeling.]

O THAT those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since heard thee last.
Those lips are thine; thy own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me:

Voice only fails; else, how distinct they say,

Grieve not, my child; chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes

(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim

To quench it!) here shines on me still the same.
My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?
Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss ;