that of the law, but rather through its weakness, because it had a Shylock to deal with. If the Jew's selfishness had not equalled his hate, he might have flung his own life into the scale to destroy his enemy, and the law would not have hindered him; but he could not rise to this pitch of resolution. Portia foresaw this, and calculated upon it.

Whether Shylock was baptized or not, in fulfilment of the sentence, we do not know, as he does not appear again in the drama.

The closing impression left by the play is the triumph of love over selfishness.

In the hall of justice in Venice, as in the hall of decision in Belmont, the same fundamental idea is put symbolically before us. Love is strong, selfishness weak; the one attains what the other misses. Love solves the dark riddles of life, bringing forth from a shadowed present a bright future; finds a way of issue, when even justice can give no further aid. Love, too, is the only fundamental power of life; without it there is no understanding life's problems, no sure groundwork for society, no happiness, no future. Love stands upon the basis of true justice, for it is the fundamental law of life. Hate stands only upon the semblance of justice, for it undermines the foundations of life. Therefore love must be victorious through Almighty power; hatred, however, and selfishness, proudly and vindictively though they demean themselves, must fall through their own weakness, despite all appearances.

We must devote a few words to the fifth act and the

amusing comedy of the rings. The drama required a pleasant ending and a humorously romantic one. The wonderful garden scene in the fifth act might be defined as roguish, so full is it of twinkling humour, of serio-comic pleasantry and light-hearted banter. Bassanio loves his wife as his own life, her love is his bliss, her possession his happiness. Luck, love, life, hang for him on the retainment of the ring she has given to him. As long as the foreign

doctor asks this ring as the only guerdon for his deed, he might refuse, however painful it was to deny it. But the entreaty of his friend, ready to pay the price of his happiness with his life, that he will reward his unlooked-for saviour with the desired jewel, he cannot resist. Had he not said that "his own life, his wife, all the world, hold not dearer than his friend's life"? Could Portia wish that her husband had done otherwise? In spite of this, she cruelly teases him with accusations. But the judge who knew so well how to plead the cause of mercy cannot be pitiless and unforgiving. This affected cruelty is only the playfulness of doubly blessed love; she knows not how to express the fulness of her joy at finding her husband's faith thus proved by his unfaithfulness. She must call humour to her assistance. The humour she showed once before when Bassanio, before the court, gave Antonio the assurance that seemed at the time to conflict with his duty as a husband. Could Portia, "on such a night," be angry in earnest with her lover, who is only apparently unfaithful?-on such a night, when all the enamoured couples meet at Belmont ?-on such a night, in which Luna, the heavenly lamp of love, "sleeps so sweetly on that bank," in which Lorenzo talks of the "floor of heaven," and the music of the spheres, and "the youngeyed cherubim" so exquisitely, and of the sound of earthly music, too, disposing to forgiveness? When Portia enters this garden, her own home, she enjoys the proud feeling of having done a good action. She compares it to a little candle that throws its beams from her own hall. Thus attuned, the most love-worthy of all women can have only peace and forgiveness in her breast; therefore the last playful shadows of division vanish in sweet peace and renewed yows of love. Promises of love and faith are exchanged, forgiveness afresh and mercy are the sweet flowers of love. No poet has ever sung more gloriously the might and beauty of love, it is the very moonlight of the realm.

of night. Portia is certainly among the most gifted and charming female characters a heaven-endowed poet ever created.

THE WOMEN OF "RICHARD III."

Princess Anne-Queen Elizabeth

It will be difficult to defend the two women in Richard III., Princess Anne and Queen Elizabeth, who have always been pronounced caricatures by members of their own sex. Here two similar scenes must be considered. In the one, Richard, alike hateful in mind and body, persuades Princess Anne, widow of the Lancastrian Prince of Wales, whom he murdered, beside the bier of her father-in-law, Henry the Sixth, whom he also murdered, to listen favourably to his proposals of marriage. In the other, he wins over Queen Elizabeth, widow of Edward the Fourth, whose lovely boys have fallen under his murderous hand, to consent to his union with her daughter, the last child left to her. And this too after his first wife, Anne, has recently died under circumstances which aroused suspicion that her death might be ascribed to Richard's murderous practices. Does he not himself declare that "he'll have her, but he will not keep her long." As soon as his ends are served he will get rid of her. These two scenes have shocked even the poet's most faithful admirers, and all objections raised cannot be set aside. Let us only consider! She was daughter to the mighty Earl of Warwick, called the king-maker, because more than once in the frightful civil wars between the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York the question was decided by him; wife to the young and amiable Lancastrian prince, Edward of Wales, the future king, therefore in the most brilliant position. She was brought up in a housc whose splendour eclipsed that of the royal court, and was destined, it seemed, herself to wear a crown. And now! Flung from her high estate, deprived of her father by his

death on the battlefield, of her youthful husband by a cruel murder, at once an orphan and a widow, beggared instead of honoured by the triumph of the rival house, weeping she follows the coffin of her lately-murdered father-in-law, King Henry the Sixth. While giving utterance to her grief in passionate expressions, there comes upon her the very man who has placed his iron grip upon her life, by whom she has been orphaned and widowed, who has destroyed all the flowers that promised to bear her such ripe and glorious fruit, whose hands are gory with the blood of her father, husband, and father-in-law. And this Richard of Gloster, the wicked demon whom she has so much reason to hate, is not even gifted with outward charms, such as might dazzle and lead astray a weak or sensually-minded woman. God has set an outward mark on this evil prince, who thus describes himself:

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.

Richard III, act i. scene 1.

Anne's good and bad qualities, we might suppose, would render it impossible for her to lend a favourable ear to the wooing of this hateful man, so unpleasing in exterior. All her memorics as daughter and wife must cleave an abyss between her and this unlovely wooer. And yet, after an angry outbreak of hatred and scorn, she parts from him with words which, though they still sound doubtful and cquivocal, allow him to hope for a favourable issue to his suit. She takes his ring, albeit with the phrase, "to take is not to give." The monster sees himself nearing the prize, and breaks out triumphantly:

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?

I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill'd her husband and her father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate,

With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of her hatred by ;

Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I nothing to back my suit at all

But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave prince,

Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewkesbury?

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,

Framed in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,

The spacious world cannot again afford;

And will she yet debase her eyes on me,

That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt and am unshapen thus ?

Richard III., act i. scene 2.

Shakespeare himself, in this monologue, furnishes a criticism on the situation. He thus places it beyond question that the scene was not the result of carelessness. Outrageous as it is, it was written with perfect consciousness, with foresight and preparation. It is noticeable that he, who ger.erally keeps so close to history, here falls markedly and consciously away. In the scene with Elizabeth he almost repeats himself. The poet, who, we know, is such an adept in knowledge of human nature, and not least of the female heart, shows us such an alarming example of feminine weakness and want of character that we hesitate to follow him. Certainly he uses all the gifts at his command to make this development appear natural and founded in the character of the female sex. With rough words, and with a manner learned, no doubt, in the wild school of civil war, Richard stops the procession in which Anne, as mourner,