You gave me a treat on Saturday such as I have very seldom had in my life.  You must be weary by this time of hearing your own praises, so I will only say that Portia was all I could have imagined, and more.  And Shylock is superb—­especially in the trial-scene.

Now I am going to be very bold, and make a suggestion, which I do hope you will think well enough of to lay it before Mr. Irving.  I want to see that clause omitted (in the sentence on Shylock)—­

                     That, for this favour,
        He presently become a Christian;

It is a sentiment that is entirely horrible and revolting to the feelings of all who believe in the Gospel of Love.  Why should our ears be shocked by such words merely because they are Shakespeare’s?  In his day, when it was held to be a Christian’s duty to force his belief on others by fire and sword—­to burn man’s body in order to save his soul—­the words probably conveyed no shock.  To all Christians now (except perhaps extreme Calvinists) the idea of forcing a man to abjure his religion, whatever that religion may be, is (as I have said) simply horrible.

I have spoken of it as a needless outrage on religious feeling:  but surely, being so, it is a great artistic mistake.  Its tendency is directly contrary to the spirit of the scene.  We have despised Shylock for his avarice, and we rejoice to see him lose his wealth:  we have abhorred him for his bloodthirsty cruelty, and we rejoice to see him baffled.  And now, in the very fulness of our joy at the triumph of right over wrong, we are suddenly called on to see in him the victim of a cruelty a thousand times worse than his own, and to honour him as a martyr.  This, I am sure, Shakespeare never meant.  Two touches only of sympathy does he allow us, that we may realise him as a man, and not as a demon incarnate.  “I will not pray with you”; “I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor.”  But I am sure he never meant our sympathies to be roused in the supreme moment of his downfall, and, if he were alive now, I believe he would cut out those lines about becoming a Christian.

No interpolation is needed—­(I should not like to suggest
the putting in a single word that is not Shakespeare’s)—­I
would read the speech thus:—­

             That lately stole his daughter: 
        Provided that he do record a gift,
        Here in the court, &c.

And I would omit Gratiano’s three lines at Shylock’s exit,
and let the text stand:—­

Duke:  “Get thee gone, but do it.” (Exit
Shylock.)

The exit, in solemn silence, would be, if possible, even
grander than it now is, and would lose nothing by the
omission of Gratiano’s flippant jest....