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according to the early texts, "whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself"? He says:

So may the outward shows be least themselves;
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.

But the only principle which his words suggest, as an alternative to judging by appearances, is the still more childish one of judging contrary to appearances. He rejects the "gaudy gold,” fearing to be "deceiv'd with ornament.” He then puts aside the silver mean between the two extremes, giving as the reason simply that silver is the "pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man.” contrast to Morocco and Arragon, Bassanio pays no attention whatever to the inscriptions upon these two caskets. When he turns to the leaden casket, however, there is an allusion to the inscription:

But thou, thou meagre lead,
Which rather threat'nest than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence;
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

In

Except for this brief reference, Bassanio pays no attention to the threatening words upon the casket of lead. Paleness, which made the silver casket unattractive, has strangely become a charm in the leaden. The apparent reason for his choice is that he is glad, as an ardent lover, to hazard all for love.

The question arises whether Shakespeare would not have given to this scene an added significance, a finer reasonableness, if he had made Bassanio pay more attention to the different mottoes, and definitely prefer the sentiment upon the chosen casket. The man who makes choice of the inscription, "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath," is to win the hand of Portia. These words represent the essential, inevitable law of

marriage. It is wholly true in this case also, although a penniless gentleman is to wed a wealthy heiress. Marriage is the great venture of life, inherently and necessarily. Only he who knows that he is giving and hazarding all he hath is fitted to marry. If this truth were realized, there might be fewer marriages; there would certainly be fewer divorces.

What an opportunity Shakespeare made for himself here. to set forth the essential nature of true marriage! Why does he fail to use this opportunity? Early in his career, in the relations between Antipholus of Ephesus and his wife Adriana in "The Comedy of Errors," he illustrated the friction and misunderstandings that can disturb married life even when neither person is very plainly at fault. Why then does he put us off here with the cheap moral that man should judge contrary to appearances?

It is not probable thaat the modern reader sees an opportunity here which Shakespeare failed to discern. It may well be that the whole tone and temper of "The Merchant of Venice" is so idealizing, so romantic, that any realistic grappling with the nature and the dangers of the marriage relation was felt to be out of keeping with the spirit of the play. As in so many of the comedies, every possibility of discord or misunderstanding is supposed to vanish with the sound of marriage bells. Shakespeare has been satisfied to set forth here a very shallow truth, although in the challenging words upon the leaden casket a trenchant, fateful life-lesson was staring him in the face.

STUDIES IN "JULIUS CÆSAR"

I. THE TEXT

THE language of this play is so free from corruption that the editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare think that the earliest text, that found in the First Folio, "may perhaps have been (as the preface [of the Folio] falsely implied that all [the plays] were) printed from the original manuscript of the author."

Dr. H. H. Furness, Jr., in the new Variorum edition of the play1 finds only nine places where the Cambridge editors have departed from the text of the Folio. Most of these changes are unnecessary. The Cambridge edition differs from the Folio in at least three other places, not noted by Furness, and each of these additional changes is unnecessary. I, i, 16 is given to Flavius in the Folio, to Marullus in the Cambridge text, as in the edition of Capell; "Walkes” in I, ii, 155, is changed to "walls," as proposed by Rowe; III, i, 101-102, assigned to Casca in the Folio, is transferred to Cassius, following Pope.2

The word and has two different meanings in Shakespeare; it may signify addition, plus, its regular meaning in present English, or it may be equivalent to if. When it has the latter value it is shortened to an in the First Folio in a few cases, as in "Julius Cæsar," IV, iii, 258: "I [=Ay] my Lord, an't please you." The excellent scholar 1J. B. Lippincott Co., 1913, p. 281.

"I give the line-numbers of W. A. Neilson's one-volume Shakespeare, Boston, 1906. These agree with those of the Globe edition.

Theobald unwisely decided to print the word as an whenever the meaning is if. This has become the accepted practice among the later editors of Shakespeare. I cannot see why the reader should have the truth in this small matter carefully concealed from him. When the present writer edited the play in 1901,1 the plates, which had been made with these false an's, were altered to conform to the Folio.

In another case, however, the writer followed a multitude to do evil. In I, iii, 20-22, Casca says, according to the Folio:

Against the Capitoll I met a Lyon,

Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me.

Rowe began the practice of changing glaz'd to glar'd. But the verb to glaze is still in use in Cornwall and Devon, and may well have been known to Shakespeare. It seems to be an interesting blend of gaze and glare, meaning to gaze glaringly. The Folio word glaz'd should be retained.2

II. THE SOOTHSAYER OF II, IV

Let us look for a moment at the portrayal of the Soothsayer in II, iv. Tyrwhitt said: "The introduction of the Soothsayer here is unnecessary and, I think, improper.

The edition is now published by World Book Co., Yonkers, N. Y.

A few minor oversights in the edition of Furness may be mentioned here. In II, i, 271 (243 in Neilson) the Folio word is "scratch'd." The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke (p. 143) was printed in 1595; 1600 is the date of the second edition. In some cases books and articles used by Dr. Furness do not appear in the Bibliography, and are nowhere fully described. Since the volumes of the New Variorum edition are a sort of final authority, the Bibliography and Index should in each case be as complete as possible.

All that he is made to say should be given to Artemidorus, who is seen and accosted by Portia in his passage from his first stand to one more convenient.” 1 Since both Artemidorus and the Soothsayer speak in the next scene, we cannot make any alteration; but this timid creature is not dramatically effective. He says:

Here the street is narrow;

The throng that follows Cæsar at the heels,
Of senators, of praetors, common suitors,
Will crowd a feeble man almost to death.
I'll get me to a place more void, and there
Speak to great Cæsar as he comes along.

Ll. 33-38.

Can it be that Shakespeare did not realize how impressive he had made the Soothsayer at his first appearance (I, ii, 12-24)? This feeble old man seems a strange, a needless degradation of that grand and mysterious figure.

III. BEN JONSON ON III, 1, 47-48

Know, Cæsar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied.

Ben Jonson has been thought to refer to an earlier form of this passage in two places. In the Induction to "The Staple of News," first acted in 1625, Prologue says to Gossip Expectation: "Cry you mercy, you never did wrong but with just cause." In the "Discoveries," published after the author's death in the Folio of 1641, Jonson says, speaking of Shakespeare: "Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, 'Cæsar thou dost me wrong.' He replied, 'Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause,' and such like; which were ridiculous." 2

1 Furness, p. 128.

* Gifford-Cunningham edition, The Works of Ben Jonson, Chatto, 1904, II, 275, and III, 398; Furness, 136.

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