is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks: The man is, notwithstanding, fufficient:-three thousand ducats ;-I think, I may take his bond.

BASS. Be affured you may.

SHY. I will be affured, I may; and, that I may be affured, I will bethink me: May I speak with Antonio?

BASS. If it please you to dine with us.

SHr. Yes, to fmell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into: I will buy with you, fell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and fo following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?-Who is he comes here?

Enter ANTONIO.

BASS. This is fignior Antonio.

Sur. [Afide.] How like a fawning publican he

looks!

I hate him for he is a chriftian:

But more, for that, in low fimplicity,
He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of ufance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,"

6 the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into:] Perhaps there is no character through all Shakspeare, drawn with more fpirit, and juft difcrimination, than Shylock's. His language, allufions, and ideas, are every where so appropriate to a Jew, that Shylock might be exhibited for an exemplar of that peculiar people. HENLEY.

If I can catch him once upon the hip,] This, Dr. Johnfon obferves, is a phrafe taken from the practice of wrestlers; and (he might have added) is an allufion to the angel's thus laying hold on Jacob when he wrestled with him. See Gen. xxxii. 24, &c.

HENLEY.

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our facred nation; and he rails,
Even there where merchants moft do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls intereft: Curfed be my tribe,
If I forgive him!

BASS.

Shylock, do you hear?

SHY. I am debating of my present store;
And, by the near guefs of my memory,
I cannot instantly raise up the grofs

Of full three thousand ducats: What of that?
Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,
Will furnish me: But foft; How many months
defire?-Rest you fair, good fignior;
[TO ANTONIO.
Your worship was the last man in our mouths.

Do you

ANT. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow, By taking, nor by giving of excess,

Yet, to fupply the ripe wants of my friend,
I'll break a custom :-Is he yet poffefs'd,'
How much you would?

SHY.

Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.

ANT. And for three months.

SHY. I had forgot,-three months, you told me fo. Well then, your bond; and, let me fee,

hear you;

-But

the ripe wants of my friend,] Ripe wants are wants come to the height, wants that can have no longer delay. Perhaps we might read-rife wants, wants that come thick upon him. JOHNSON. Ripe is, I believe, the true reading. So afterwards:

"But ftay the very riping of the time." MALONE. Again, in A Midfummer-Night's Dream:

"Here is a brief how many sports are ripe." STEEVENS. 9-poffefs'd,] i. e. acquainted, informed. So, in TwelfthNight: Poffefs us, poffefs us, tell us fomething of him."

་་

7

Methought, you said, you neither lend, nor borrow, Upon advantage.

SHY. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep, This Jacob from our holy Abraham was (As his wife mother wrought in his behalf,) The third poffeffor; ay, he was the third.

ANT. And what of him? did he take interest? SHY. No, not take interest; not, as you would fay,

Directly interest: mark what Jacob did.

When Laban and himself were compromis'd,
That all the eanlings which were ftreak'd, and pied,
Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,
In the end of autumn turned to the rams:
And when the work of generation was
Between these woolly breeders in the act,
The skilful shepherd peel'd me certain wands,
And, in the doing of the deed of kind,'
He stuck them up before the fulfome ewes ; *

the canlings-] Lambs juft dropt: from ean, eniti.

MUSGRAVE. certain wands,] A wand in our author's time was the ufual term for what we now call a fwitch. MALONE.

3

- of kind,] i. e. of nature. So, Turbervile, in his book of Falconry, 1575, P. 127:

"So great is the curtefy of kind, as fhe ever fecketh to recompenfe any defect of hers with fome other better benefit.”

the fulfome ewes es;] Fulfome, I believe in this inftance, means lafcivious, obfcene. The fame epithet is beftowed on the night, in Acolaftus his After-Witte. By S. N. 1600:

"Why fhines not Phoebus in the fulfome night ?"

In the play of Mulcaffes the Turk, Madam Fulfome a Bard is introduced. The word, however, fometimes fignifies offenfive in fmell. So, in Chapman's verfion of the 17th Book of the Odyffey "—and fill'd his fulfame fcrip," &c.

Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time
Fall party-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.
This was a way to thrive," and he was bleft;
And thrift is bleffing, if men steal it not.

ANT. This was a venture, fir, that Jacob serv'd
for;

A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
But fway'd, and fashion'd, by the hand of heaven.
Was this inferted to make interest good?
Or is your gold and filver, ewes and rams?

It is likewise used by Shakspeare in King John, to exprefs fome quality offenfive to nature:

"And ftop this gap of breath with fulfome duft." Again, in Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: "Having a ftrong fent and fulfome fmell, which neither men, nor beastes take delight to smell unto."

Again, ibid:

"Boxe is naturally dry, juiceleffe, fulfomely and loathfomely fmelling."

Again, in Arthur Golding's Tranflation of Ovid's Metamarphofis, B. XV:

"But what have you poore sheepe misdone, a cattell meck and meeld,

"Created for to manteine man, whofe fulfome dugs doe

Minfheu fuppofes it to mean naufeous in fo high a degree as to excite vomiting. MALONE.

S and thofe were Jacob's.] See Genefis, xxx. 37, &c.

STEEVENS.

6 This was a way to thrive, &c.] So, in the ancient song of

Gernutus the Jew of Venice:

"His wife muft lend a fhilling,

"For every weeke a penny,

"Yet bring a pledge that is double worth,

"If that you will have any,

"And fee, likewife, you keepe your day,

"Or elfe you lofe it all:

"This was the living of the wife,

"Her cow.fhe did it call."

Her cow, &c. feems to have fuggefted to Shakspeare Shylock's argument for ufury, PERCY.

SHY. I cannot tell; I make it breed as faft: 4But note me, fignior.

ANT.
Mark you this, Baffanio,
The devil can cite fcripture for his purpofe.'
An evil foul, producing holy witnefs,
Is like a villain with a fmiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:

O, what a goodly outfide falfhood hath!"

SHY. Three thoufand ducats,-'tis a good round

fum.

Three months from twelve, then let me fee the rate. ANT. Well, Shylock, fhall we be beholden to

you?

Sur. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, In the Rialto you have rated me

About my monies, and my ufances: "

Adonis :

I make it breed as faft:] So, in our author's Venus and

"Foul cank'ring ruft the hidden treasure frets; "But gold that's put to ufe more gold begets." MALONE. The devil can cite feripture, &c.] See St. Matthew. iv. 6. HENLEY.

O, what a goodly outfide falfhood bath!] Falsehood, which as truth means honefty, is taken here for treachery and knavery, does not ftand for falfhood in general, but for the difhonefty now operating. JOHNSON.

7my ufances:] Ufe and Ufance are both words anciently employ'd for ufury, both in its favourable and unfavourable fenfe. So, in The English Traveller, 1633:

Again,

"Give me my ufe, give me my principal."

"A toy; the main about five hundred pounds,
"And the ufe fifty." STEEVENS.

Mr. Ritfon afks, whether Mr. Steevens is not mistaken in saying that use and ufance, were anciently employed for jury. “Uje and ufance, (he adds) mean nothing more than intereft; and the former word is ftill ufed by country people in the fame fenfe." That Mr. Steevens however is right refpecting the word in the text, will appear from the following quotation, "I knowe 2,