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Sheva. We have no abiding place on earth, no country, no home; every body rails at us, every body flouts us, every body points us out for their maygame and their mockery. If your play writers want a butt or a buffoon, or a knave, to make sport of, out comes a Jew, to be baited and buffeted through five long acts, for the amusement of all goot Christians. Cruel sport !-merciless amusement ! Hard dealings for a poor stray sheep of the scattered flock of Abraham! How can you expect us to show kindness, when we receive none?

Char. (Advancing.) That is true, friend Sheva! I can witness. I am sorry to say there is too much justice in your complaint.

Sheva. Bless this goot light! I did not see you-'tis my very goot friend, Mr. Ratcliffe, as I live.-Give me your pardon. I should be sorry to say in your hearing, that there is no charity for the poor Jews. Truly, sir, I am under very great obligations to you for your generous protection t'other night, when I was mobbed and maltreated; and, for aught I can tell, should have been massacred, had not you stood forward in my defense. Truly, sir, I bear it very thankfully in my remembrance; truly I do; yes, truly.

Fred. Leave me with him, Charles; I'll hold him in discourse whilst you go to my father. (Exit Charles.)

Sheva. Oh! it was a goot deed, very goot deed, to save a poor Jew from a pitiless mob; and I am very grateful to you, worthy Mr. Ah! the gentleman is gone away: that is another thing.

Fred. It is so, but your gratitude need not go away at the same time; you are not bound to make good the proverb"Out of sight, out of mind."

Sheva. No, no, no! I am very much obliged to him, not only for my life, but for the moneys and the valuables I had about me; I had been hustled out of them all, but for him.

Fred. Well, then, having so much gratitude for his favors, you have now an opportunity of making some return to him. Sheva. Yes, yes, and I do make him a return of my thanks and goot wishes very heartily. What can a poor Jew say more? I do wish him all goot things, and give him all goot words.

Fred. Good words, indeed! What are they to a man who is cast naked upon the wide world, with a widowed mother and a defenseless sister, who look up to him for their support?

Sheva. Goot lack, goot lack! I thought he was in occupations in your fader's counting-house.

Fred. He was, and from his scanty pittance, piously supported these poor destitutes: that source is now stopped, and as you, when in the midst of rioters, was in want of a protector, so is he, in the midst of his misfortunes, in want of some kind friend to rescue him.

Sheva. Oh dear, oh dear! this world is full of sadness and of sorrow; miseries upon miseries! unfortunates by hundreds and by thousands, and poor Sheva has but two weak eyes to find tears for them all.

Fred. Come, come, Sheva, pity will not feed the hungry, nor clothe the naked. Ratcliffe is the friend of my heart: I am helpless in myself; my father, though just, is austere in the extreme; I dare not resort to him for money, nor can I turn my thoughts to any other quarter for the loan of a small sum in this extremity, except to you.

Sheva. To me! goot lack, to me! What will become of me? What will Sir Stephen say? He is full of moneys, but then again, he is a close man, very austere, as you say, and very just, but not very generous.

Fred. Well, well, let me have your answer.

Sheva. Yes, yes, but my answer will not please you without the moneys; I shall be a Jewish dog, a baboon, an imp of Beelzebub, if I don't find the moneys, and when my moneys is all gone, what shall I be then? An ass, a fool, a jack-a-dandy! -Oh dear! Oh dear! Well, there must be conditions, look you.

Fred. To be sure: security twice secured; premium and interest, and bond and judgment into the bargain. Only enable me to preserve my friend; give me that transport, and I care not what I pay for it.

Sheva. Mercy on your heart! what haste and hurry you are in! How much did you want? One hundred pounds, did you say?

Fred. More than one, more than one.

Sheva, Ah! poor Sheva! More than one hundred pounds; what! so much as two hundred ? 'tis a great deal of moneys. Fred. Come, friend Sheva, at one word—three hundred pounds.

Sheva. Mercies defend me, what a sum!

Fred. Accommodate me with three hundred pounds; make your own terms; consult your conscience in the bargain, and I will say you are a good fellow. Oh! Sheva! did you but know the luxury of relieving honor, innocence, and beauty, from distress!

Sheva. Oh! 'tis great luxury, I dare say, else you would not buy it at so high a price. Well, well, well! I have thought a little, and if you will come to my poor cabin in Duke's place, you shall have the moneys.

Fred. Well said, my gallant Sheva! Shall I bring a bond with me to fill up

?

Sheva. No, no, no; we have all those in my shop.

Fred. I don't doubt it: all the apparatus of an usurer. (Aside.) Farewell, Sheva! be ready with your instruments, I care not what they are: only let me have the money, and you may proceed to dissection as soon after as you please. (Exit.)

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Sheva. Heigho! I cannot choose but weep. Sheva, thou art a fool. Three hundred pounds, by the day, how much is that in the year?-Oh dear, oh dear! I shall be ruined, starved, wasted to a watch-light. Bowels, you shall pinch for this: I'll not eat flesh this fortnight: I'll suck the air for nourishment: I'll feed upon the steam of an alderman's kitchen, as I put my nose down his area. Well, well! but soft, a word, friend Sheva! Art thou not rich, monstrous rich, abominably rich? and yet thou livest on a crust. Be it so thou dost stint thine appetites to pamper thine affections; thou dost make thyself to live in poverty, that the poor may live in plenty. Well, well! so long as thou art a miser only to thine own cost, thou mayest hug thyself in this poor habit, and set the world's contempt at nought.

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(Enter Charles Ratcliffe, not noticing the Jew.) Char. Unfeeling, heartless man, I've done with you. I'll dig, beg, perish, rather than submit to such unnatural terms! may remain : my mother and my sister must be banished to a distance. Why, this Jew, this usurer, this enemy to our faith, whose heart is in his bags, would not have used me thus-I'll question him. Sheva!

Sheva. What is your pleasure?
Char I do not know the word.
Sheva.

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What is your will, then? Speak it.

Char. Sheva!-You have been a son-you had a motherdost remember her?

Sheva. Goot lack, goot lack! do I remember her!-
Char. Didst love her, cherish her, support her?

Sheva. Ah me! ah me! it is as much as my poor heart will bear to think of her. I would have died

Char.

Thou hast affections, feelings, charitiesSheva. I am a man, sir; call me how you please.

Char. I'll call you Christian, then, and this proud merchant, Jew.

Sheva. I shall not thank you for that compliment.

Char.

And hadst thou not a sister, too?

Sheva. No; no sister, no broder, no son, no daughter; I am a solitary being, a waif on the world's wide common.

Char. And thou hast hoarded wealth, till thou art sick with gold, even to plethora. Thy bags run over with the spoils of usury, thy veins are glutted with the blood of prodigals and gamesters.

Sheva. I have enough; something, perhaps, to spare.

Char. And I have nothing, nothing to spare but miseries, with which my measure overflows. By heaven, it racks my soul to think that those beloved sufferers should want, and this thing so abound! (Aside.) Now, Sheva, now, if you and I were out of sight of man, benighted in some desert, wild as my thoughts, naked as my fortune, should you not tremble?

Sheva. What should I tremble for ?-You could not harm a poor, defenseless, aged man?

Char. Indeed, indeed, I could not harm you, Sheva, whilst I retained my senses.

Sheva. Sorrow disturbs them: yes, yes, it is sorrow. Ah me, ah me! poor Sheva in his time has been driven mad with sorrow.-'Tis a hard world.

Char. Sir, I have done you wrong. You pity me, I'm sure you do those tones could never proceed but from a feeling heart.

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Sheva. Try me, touch me, I am not made of marble.

Char. No, on my life you are not.

Sheva. Nor yet of gold extorted from the prodigal: I am no shark to prey upon mankind. What I have got, I have got by little and little, working hard and pinching my own bowels.-I could say something; it is in my thought; but no, I will not say it here. This is the house of trade; that is not to my pur. pose. Come home with me, so please you; 'tis but a little walk, and you shall see what I have shown to no man-Sheva's real heart I do not carry it in my hand. Come, 1 pray you, come along. (Exeunt.)

Scene 2.-Sheva's house.

(Jabal discovered.—Enter Sheva and Charles Ratcliffe.) Sheva. So, so, so! What's here to do with you? Why are you not at your work?—Jabal, a cup of cold water-I am very thirsty.

Jabal. Are you not rather hungry too, sir? Sheva. Hold your tongue, puppy! Get about your business and, here, take my hat, clean it carefully; but mind you do not brush it; that will wear off the nap.

Jabal. The nap, indeed! There is no shelter for a flea.

Sheva. cliffe. I am an old man.

Aha! I am tired.

(Exit.)

I beg your pardon, Mr. RatSit you down, I pray you; sit you down, and we will talk a little. (Jabal brings a glass of water.) So, so, that is right. Water is goot. Fie upon you, Jabal; why do you not offer the glass to my guest, before me?

Jabal. Lord love him! I'd give him wine, if I had it.

Sheva. No, no, it is goot water; it is better than wine: wine is heating, water is cooling; wine costs moneys, water comes for nothing. Your goot health, sir! Oh! 'tis delicious, it is satisfying: I was very empty before; my stomach was craving; now I am quite content. Go your ways, Jabal; go your ways. (Exit Jabal.) Sir, I have nothing to ask you to but that water, which you would not drink: 'twas very goot water, notwithstanding. Ah! Mr. Ratcliffe, I must be very saving now. I must pinch close.

Char. For what? Are you not rich enough to allow yourself the common comforts of life?

Sheva. Oh yes, oh yes! I am rich, to be sure. Mercy on me, what a world of moneys should I now have, if I had no pity in my heart! But it melts, and melts, or else-oh! dear me, what a heap it would have been!

Char. Pardon me, sir, if I say there are some seeming contradictions in your character, which I cannot reconcile. You give away your money, it should seem, with the generosity of a prince, and I hear you lament over it in the language of a miser.

Sheva. That is true, that is very true: I love my moneys, I do love them dearly; but I love my fellow-creatures a little better.

Char. Seeing you are so charitable to others, why can't you spare a little to yourself!

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