The earliest allusion that can be made with any approach to certainty to Shakespeare's comedy of "The Merchant of Venice" is in the year 1594. We find it then mentioned by Francis Meres in his "Palladis Tamia" and it is also entered on the books of the Stationers Company by J. Roberts in this same year. To this a clause is however added "that no one was to print "it without the Lord Chamberlen's lycence being first had ". Henslowe writing in his Diary on August, 25, 1594, alludes to a play called "The Venesyon Comodey", which was produced that month at "The Rose,, and which has been somewhat erroneously ascribed to Shakespeare. It is however generally supposed that this "Venetian comedy " was either some other play, or the draft of one drawn up hurriedly by Shakespeare to satisy the public feeling then running high against the Jews, owing it was said to an attempt on the |