they are like some old portraits which can still amuse and please by the beauty of the workmanship, in spite of the graceless costume or grotesque accompaniments, but from which we turn to worship with ever new delight the Floras and goddesses of Titian—the saints and virgins of Raffaelle and Domenichino. So the Millamants and Belindas, the Lady Townleys, the Lady Teazles are out of date, while Portia and Rosalind, in whom nature and the feminine character are paramount, remain bright and fresh to the fancy as when first created. Portia, Isabella, Beatrice, and Rosalind, may be classed together, as characters of intellect, because, when compared with others, they are at once distinguished by their mental superiority. In Portia it is intellect, kindled into romance by a poetical imagination; in Isabel, it is intellect elevated by religious principle; in Beatrice, intellect animated by spirit; in Rosalind, intellect softened by sensibility. The wit which is lavished on each is profound, or pointed, or sparkling, or playful—but always feminine, like spirits distilled from flowers, it always remind us of its origin;— it is a volatile essence, sweet as powerful; and to pursue the comparison a step further the wit of Portia is like attar of roses, rich and concentrated; that of Rosalind, like cotton dipped in aromatic vinegar; the wit of Beatrice is like sal volatile; and that of Isabel, like the incerse wafted to heaven. Of these four exquisite characters, considered as dramatic and poetical conceptions, it is difficult to pronounce which is most perfect in its way, most admirably drawn, most highly finished. But if considered in another point of view, as women and individuals, as breathing realities, clothed in flesh and blood, I believe we must assign the first rank to Portia, as uniting in herself in a more eminent degree than the others, all the noblest and most loveable qualities that ever met together in woman ; and presenting a complete personification of Petrarch's exquisite epitome of female perfection: 66 Il vago spirito ardento, E'n alto intelletto, un puro core. It is singular, that hitherto no critical justice has been done to the character of Portia : it is yet more wonderful, that one of the finest writers on the eternal subject of Shakspeare and his perfections, should accuse Portia of pedantry and affectation, and confess she is not a great favorite of his, a confession quite worthy of him, who avers his predilection for servant maids, and a preference of the Fannys and the Pamelas over the Clementinas and Clarissas." Schlegel, who has given several pages to a rapturous eulogy on the Merchant of Venice, simply designates Portia, as a rich, beautiful, clever heiress." If Portia had been created as a mere instrument to bring about a dramatic catastrophe-if she had merely detected the flaw in Antonio's bond, and used it as a means to baffle the Jew, she might have been pronounced a clever woman. But what Portia does, is forgotten in what she is. The rare and harmonious blending of energy, gentleness, wisdom, and feeling, in her fine character, make the epithet clever sound like a discord as applied to her, and places her infinitely beyond the slight praise of Richardson and Schlegel, neither of whom appear to have fully comprehended her.t *Hazlitt's Essays, vol. ii. p. 167. In the first edition I protested against the word clever as quite inapplicable to Portia. I find that Schlegel's word is geistreich, literally rich in soul or spirit, a strong and beautiful expression, and just as it is beautiful. Would it not be well, if this common and comprehensive word clever were more accurately defined, or at least, more accurately used? It signifies properly, not so much the possession of high powers, as dexterity in the adaptation of certain faculties (not necessarily of a high order) to a certain end or aim-not always the worthiest. It implies something common-place, inasmuch as it speaks the presence of the active and perceptive, with a deficiency of the feeling and reflective powers: and, applied to a woman, does it not almost invariably suggest the idea of something we should These and other critics have been aparently so dazzled and engrossed by the amazing character of Shylock that Portia has received less than justice at their hands: while the fact is, that Shylock is not a finer or more finished character in his way, than Portia in her's. These two splendid figures are worthy of each other; worthy of being placed together within the same rich frame-work of enchanting poetry, and glorious and graceful forms. She hangs beside the terrible, the inexorable Jew, the brilliant lights of her character set off by the shadowy power of his, like a magnificent beauty-breathing Titian by the side of a gorgeous Rembrandt. Portia is endued with her own share of those delightful qualities, which Shakspeare has lavished on many of his female characters; but, besides the dignity, the sweetness, and tenderness which should distinguish her sex generally, she is individualized by qualities peculiar to herself; by her high mental powers, her enthusiasm of temperament, her decision of purpose, and her buoyancy of spirit. These are innate she has other distinguishing qualities more external, and which are the result of the circumstances in which she is placed. Thus she is the heiress of a princely name and countless wealth: a train of obedient pleasures have ever waited round her; and from infancy she has breathed an atmosphere redolent of perfume and blandishment. Accordingly there is a commanding grace, a highbred, airy elegance, a spirit of magnificence, in all that she does and says, as one to whom splendor had been familiar from her very birth. She treads as though her footdistrust or shrink from, if not allied to a higher nature? The profligate French women, who ruled the councils of Europe in the middle of the last century, were clever women; and that philosopheress Madame Du Chatelet, who managed at one and the same moment, the thread of an intrigue, her cards at piquet, and a calculation in algebra, was a very clever woman. steps had been among marble palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and pavements of jasper and porphyry -amid gardens full of statues, and flowers, and fountains and haunting music. She is full of penetrative wisdom, and genuine tenderness, and lively wit; but as she has never known want, or grief, or fear, or disappointment, her wisdom is without a touch of the sombre or the sad'; her affections are all mixed up with faith, hope, and joy; and her wit has not a particle of malevolence or causticity. It is well known that the Merchant of Venice is founded on two different tales; and in weaving together his double plot in so masterly a manner, Shakspeare has rejected altogether the character of the astutious lady of Belmont with her magic potions, who figures in the Italian novel. With yet more refinement, he has thrown out all the licentious part of the story, which some of his cotemporary dramatists would have seized on with avidity, and made the best or the worst of it possible; and he has substituted the trial of the caskets from another source. We are not told expressly where Belmont is situated; but as Bassanio takes ship to go thither from Venice, and as we had them afterwards ordering horses from Belmont to Padua we will imagine Portia's hereditary palace as standing on some lovely promontory between Venice and Trieste, overlooking the blue Adriatic, with the Friuli mountains or the Euganean hills for its back ground, such as we often see in one of Claude's or Poussin's elysian landscapes. In ́ a scene, in a home like this, Shakspeare having first ex * In the "Mercatante di Venezia” of Ser. Giovanni, we have the whole story of Antonio and Bassanio, and part of the story, but not the character of Portia. The incident of the caskets is from the Gesta Romanorum. orcised the original possessor has placed his Portia ; and so endowed her, that all the wild, strange, and moving circumstances of the story become natural, probable, and necessary in connexion with her. That such a woman should be chosen by the solving of an enigma, is not surprising herself and all around her, the scene, the country, the age in which she is placed, breathe of poetry, romance and enchantment. From the four quarters of the earth they come To stop the foreign spirits; but they come The sudden plan which she forms for the release of her husband's friend, her disguise, and her deportment as the young and learned doctor, would appear forced and improbable in any other woman; but in Portia are the simple and natural result of her character.* The quickness with which she perceives the legal advantage which may be taken of the circumstances; the journey to consult her learned cousin the Doctor Bellario, the spirit of adventure with which she engages in the masquerading, and the decision, firmness, and intelligence with which she executes her generous purpose, are all in perfect keeping, and nothing appears forced-nothing as introduced merely for theatrical effect. * In that age, delicate points of law were not determined by the ordinary judges of the provinces, but by doctors of law, who were called from Bologna, Padua, and other places celebrated for their legal colleges. |