Lucetta.  I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire, But qualify the fire’s extremes! rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia.  The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns; The current that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with th’ enamell’d stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage:  And so by many winding nooks he strays, With willing sport, to the wild ocean.

[Footnote:  ‘The river wanders at its own sweet will.’  Wordsworth. ]

Then let me go, and hinder not my course; I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love; And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

If Shakespeare indeed had written only this and other passages in the two gentlemen of Verona, he would almost have deserved Milton’s praise of him—­

And sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, Warbles his native wood-notes wild.

But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

This is a play that in spite of the change of manners and of prejudices still holds undisputed possession of the stage.  Shakespeare’s malignant has outlived Mr. Cumberland’s benevolent Jew.  In proportion as Shylock has ceased to be a popular bugbear, ‘baited with the rabble’s curse’, he becomes a half favourite with the philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries.  Shylock is A good hater; ’a. man no less sinned against than sinning’.  If he carries his revenge too far, yet he has strong grounds for ‘the lodged hate he bears Anthonio’, which he explains with equal force of eloquence and reason.  He seems the depositary of the vengeance of his race; and though the long habit of brooding over daily insults and injuries has crusted over his temper with inveterate misanthropy, and hardened him against the contempt of mankind, this adds but little to the triumphant pretensions of his enemies.  There is a strong, quick, and deep sense of justice mixed up with the gall and bitterness of his resentment.  The constant apprehension of being burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled, and trampled on, might be supposed to sour the most forbearing nature, and to take something from that ‘milk of human kindness’, with which his persecutors contemplated his indignities.  The desire of revenge is almost inseparable from the sense of wrong; and we can hardly help sympathizing with the proud spirit, hid beneath his ’Jewish gaberdine’, stung to madness by repeated undeserved provocations, and labouring to throw off the load of obloquy and oppression heaped upon him and all