arms.

When the nurse enters the next morning to wake and dress her for the marriage, she finds her lying on her couch in a trance which looks like death. She deems her dead, and wakes the house with her loud lamentations. Father, mother, bridegroom, hasten in, and burst into passionate and despairing outcries. The Friar bids them moderate their grief, and consoles them with the thought-" She's best married that dies married young." The beautiful corpse is solemnly interred in the family vault of the Capulets. A fatal chance upsets the monk's plan of bringing Romeo from Mantua just at the right moment to receive the waking Juliet in his loving The unlucky haste of a servant carries the news to Romeo that Juliet is dead. With the passionate impulse that is the ruling spirit of his character and the cause of his tragic fate, he resolves, without further investigation, to slay himself, buys poison from a starving apothecary, hurries to the grave where Juliet lies to all appearance dead, and kills himself, after he has slain the Count Paris, who has come to the grave to weep once more over the bride whom death has torn from him. The Friar enters the vault to bear the awakened Juliet to the shelter of a cloister until her husband can arrive. To his horror he finds the corpse of Romeo lying at the foot of the monument. Juliet awakes: "Where is my Romeo?" is her first question. The Friar answers, "Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead." That is enough -no accusation, no question, no request. for her but death, and she dies. So these

Nothing is left immortal lovers,

innocent, loving and beloved, descend together into their grave. But this grave is not the abode of rage or of despair. It is the altar of a holy love. Shakespeare has omitted a terribly tragic bit existing in the material of his play. Here Juliet awakes before Romeo has drawn his last breath. The lovers die with the terrible consciousness that their fatal haste has deprived them of a long and happy life of love. Shakespeare has at least spared to Romeo this grief, and he did wisely to omit this effect, so

actively exploited by the musical setters of the table, to the real martyrdom of their hearers. Romeo and Juliet are as lovely in death as in life; their pain, the fearful tragedy of their fortunes, seems transfigured in the wonderful manner in which it is set before us. We leave their grave with deep sorrow, but without that horror which the redoubled agony of their despairing death would have left. The highest, most idcal aim of tragedy is here attained. Over their grave the hostile houses clasp hands in peace. The personages themselves perish through the power of fate and of their own passions, but above their tomb rises triumphantly victorious the eternal immortally true ideal of love, of peace, and pardon.

Mrs. Jameson, who has written a valuable work on the characteristics of Shakespeare's women, places Portia in the Merchant of Venice, Isabella in Measure for Measure, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, and Rosalind in As You Like It, in one group which she defines as intellectual. By this she does not mean that in these lovely womanly characters intelligence is developed at the expense of the heart, but that, in conjunction with worth and lovable qualities, intellect is pre-eminent in their composition. This highly developed intellect is glorified in Portia by a truly poetic and romantic feeling, ennobled in Isabella by profound faith, enlivened in Beatrice by sparkling wit, dazzling and striking in the former, mild and gentle in the latter. As testimony to the poet's creative fancy, each is alike admirable, so that we scarcely know whom to admire most. Regarded, however, as real women, we must recognise Portia as the most perfect, because she possesses in a higher degree the noble womanly qualities.

She comes nearest to a perfect ideal of lovely and cultivated womanhood. Shakespeare drew the material of the Merchant of Venice from two different sources, and as usual reveals his master-hand in the way he has interwoven the fables. The story of Antonio and Bassanio is taken from an Italian tale called Il Mercatante di Venetia, the casket trial from the Gestis Romanorum. The figure of Portia, as we find her in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, is, however, absolutely his own. He found in the source whence he drew, a cunning sorceress, a species of Circe, who deals in magic draughts. Out of this he created that splendid picture of womanhood whose whole being glows with a majestic charm; a ray of the purest, divinest loveliness, Portia stands at the highest, most brilliant summit of life. She has been reared in princely opulence, tended with loving devotion; no care has neared her, no cloud has dimmed the heaven of her life. Her first grief was the death of her tender solicitous father, to whom she was devoted, and who, as long as he lived, did everything to develop, by careful training and education, the noble qualities of her heart and brilliant gifts of her intellect. But this same devoted father by his last will placed his daughter in a singular and painful position. He removed the most important step of her life, on which her whole future fate would hang, entirely out of the sphere of her will, causing it to depend on a curious riddle. Three caskets of gold, silver, and lead are placed at Belmont, Portia's princely residence; her suitors must choose between these caskets. Whoever selects the right one will find Portia's portrait inside, and become the fortunate winner of her hand and property. She is bound over in no way to influence a suitor in his choice. Before he selects, each one must swear that if he chooses wrongly he will leave Belmont at once, never to woo any other lady, never to divulge which casket he had drawn, or what was its contents. These behests at first sight seem to belong to the class of over-subtle and tyran

nical provisions by means of which parents grown weakminded or imperious, through the unhesitating obedience of their children, persist in ruling them even from the grave. But upon reflection, it appears in a different light. The father who has reared a being so noble as Portia must himself have been a superior man, gifted with high qualities of intellect and heart. His daughter's profound grief also testifies to this. Neither weakness of mind nor tyrannical obstinacy, a desire to extend authority beyond the limits of the grave, can be the motive for this singular will, which seems to place the future fate of a daughter wholly in the hands of capricious fortune. It is through this behest that the father hopes to remove her fate from the grasp of blind fortune. He foresaw that an heiress so highly gifted by nature and wealth would be besieged by innumerable suitors, of whom many would be unworthy, seeking only her riches or physical beauty. From such suitors he wished to protect her. He wanted to prevent her throwing herself, dazzled perchance by outward charms, into the arms of an inferior. He wished that only the noble unselfish love of a man truly worthy should win the prize. To this end he imagined the riddle of the three caskets. Portia's portrait he placed in the least attractive, the leaden box. He felt assured that the unworthy suitors, those who sought only Portia's beauty or heritage, would never guess her highminded father's meaning, would never select the right casket. Only true and faithful love divines what true and faithful love has imagined. The result proves that Portia's father understood human nature aright in its strength and its weakness. We recognise that this was the poet's conception of the father's intention from the words of the clever and charming handmaid, Nerissa, who sees through the cunning of the old lord: "Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who chooses his meaning

chooses you), will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly, but one who you shall rightly love," and who is worthy of that love, we may venture to add. Nevertheless, Portia for the moment is in a difficult and unpleasant position. She is followed by a troop of admirers, of whom she "cannot choose one nor refuse none." She does not feel inclined to prefer one to another, as is shown by her criticisms when conversing about them with Nerissa. With acute but harmless wit, which reveals the humorous side of her character in an amiable light, she sketches each in a manner that proves how not one is really worthy of her costly prize. Nerissa consoles her with the assurance, that she is so convinced of the favourable issue of the casket trial, that she has been assured all these suitors will renounce their suit sooner than risk the hazard.

Consoled by this news, Portia announces her fixed determination,—to be expected of such a daughter,—to abide by her father's decision. At the same time, she announces that she is glad to be rid of her horde of suitors. "If I live to be as old as Sybilla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one of them but I dote on his absence, and I pray God to grant them a fair departure." But when Nerissa mentions the young Venetian Bassanio, who visited the house in her father's time, with warm praise, Portia's answer, "I remember him well, and remember him worthy of thy praise," shows that here a chord had been touched that finds an echo in Portia's heart. Perhaps she would be pleased if this youth entered the lists and were successful. But Portia is not long relieved from uninvited wooers; hardly has the door closed upon the departing pack, when a new one, the Prince of Morocco, is announced. Meanwhile this very Bassanio mentioned by Nerissa is bestirring himself in Venice. He has left his heart at Belmont, and would fain set out thither to claim the precious guerdon. Here the