in the midst of sunny magnificence, whose very element was elegant opulence and refined splendor, and by whose cradle Fortune herself stood godmother.  She seems like a perfect rose, blooming in a precious vase of gold and gems and exquisite workmanship.  Camiola’s contemptuous rebuff of her insolent courtier lover; her merciless ridicule of her fantastical, half-witted suitor; her bitter and harsh rebuke of Adorni when he draws his sword upon the man who had insulted her; above all, her hard and cold insensibility to his unbounded devotion, and the cruelty of making him the agent for the ransom of her lover from captivity (the selfishness of her passion inducing her to employ him because she knows how absolutely she may depend upon the unselfishness of his); and her final stern and peremptory claim of Bertrand’s promise, are all things that Portia could never have done.  Portia is the Lady of Belmont, and Camiola is the merchant’s daughter, a very noble and magnanimous woman.  In the munificent bestowal of their wealth, the one to ransom her husband’s friend from death, the other to redeem her own lover from captivity, the manner of the gift is strikingly characteristic of the two natures.  When Portia, radiant with the joy of relieving Bassanio’s anguish, speaks of Antonio’s heavy ransom as the “petty debt,” we feel sure that if it had been half her fortune it would have seemed to her an insignificant price to pay for her husband’s peace of mind.  Camiola reads the price set upon her lover’s head, and with grave deliberation says, “Half my estate, Adorni,” before she bids him begone and purchase at that cost the prince’s release from captivity.  Moreover, in claiming her right of purchase over him, at the very moment of his union with another woman, she gives a character of barter or sale to the whole transaction, and appeals for justice as a defrauded creditor, insisting upon her “money’s worth,” like Shylock himself, as if the love with which her heart is breaking had been a mere question of traffic between the heir of Sicily and the merchant’s daughter.  In spite of all which she is a very fine creature, immeasurably superior to the despicable man who accepts her favors and betrays her love.  It is worthy of note that Bassanio, who is clearly nothing else remarkable, is every inch a gentleman, and in that respect no unfit mate for Portia; while the Sicilian prince is a blackguard utterly, beneath Camiola in every particular but that of his birth.

I remember two things connected with my performance of Camiola which amused me a good deal at the time.  In the last scene, when she proclaims her intention of taking the vail, Camiola makes tardy acknowledgment to Adorni for his life-long constancy and love by leaving him a third of her estate, with the simple words, “To thee, Adorni, for thy true and faithful service” (a characteristic proceeding on the part of the merchant’s daughter.  Portia would have given him the ring from her finger, or