The Merchant of Venice also makes one in the list of Shakespeare’s plays given by Francis Meres in 1598.  How long before that time it was written we have no means of knowing; but, judging from the style, we cannot well assign the writing to a much earlier date; though there is some reason for thinking it may have been on the stage four years earlier; as Henslowe’s Diary records The Venetian Comedy as having been originally acted in August, 1594.  It is by no means certain, however, that this refers to Shakespeare’s play; while the workmanship here shows such maturity and variety of power as argue against that supposal.  It evinces, in a considerable degree, the easy, unlabouring freedom of conscious mastery; the persons being so entirely under the author’s control, and subdued to his hand, that he seems to let them talk and act just as they have a mind to.  Therewithal the style, throughout, is so even and sustained; the word and the character are so fitted to each other; the laws of dramatic proportion are so well observed; and the work is so free from any jarring or falling-out from the due course and order of art; as to justify the belief that the whole was written in the same stage of intellectual growth and furnishing.

In the composition of this play the Poet drew largely from preceding writers.  Novelty of plot or story there is almost none.  Nevertheless, in conception and development of character, in poetical texture and grain, in sap and flavour of wit and humour, and in all that touches the real life and virtue of the work, it is one of the most original productions that ever came from the human mind.  Of the materials here used, some were so much the common stock of European literature before the Poet’s time, and had been run into so many variations, that it is not easy to say what sources he was most indebted to for them.  The incidents of the bond and the caskets are found separately in the Gesta Romanorum, an ancient and curious collection of tales.  There was also an Italian novel, by Giovanni Fiorentino, written as early as 1378, but not printed till 1550, to which the Poet is clearly traceable.  As nothing is known of any English translation of the novel dating as far back as his time, it seems not unlikely that he may have been acquainted with it in the original.

Such are the principal tributaries to the fund of this play.  I cannot, nor need I, stay to specify the other sources to which some parts of the workmanship have been traced.

* * * * *

The praise of this drama is in the mouth of nearly all the critics.  That the praise is well deserved appears in that, from the reopening of the theatres at the Restoration till the present day, the play has kept its place on the stage; while it is also among the first of the Poet’s works to be read, and the last to be forgotten, its interest being as durable in the closet as on the boards.  Well do I remember it as the very beginning of my acquaintance with Shakespeare; one of the dearest acquaintances I have ever made, and which has been to me a source of more pleasure and profit than I should dare undertake to tell.