there is a hypocritical earnestness, as if he were giving his reason privately to the counsel, though there is a strange, indescribable sneer conveyed in that “not for Venice.” Then the compliment to Portia, “How much more elder art thou than thy looks!” which he utters, crouching low, with a smiling, even leering, admiration, but admiration given for what is on his own side. And what follows opens a most natural piece of business, arising out of the sort of confidential intimacy which he would establish between them— “Ay, his breast, So says the bond;—Doth it not, noble judge? _Nearest his heart_, those are the very words”; the latter words pronounced with canine ferocity, his eyes straining over the other’s shoulders, while he points with his knife—secure, too, that the other will agree with him. He fancies that he has brought over the counsel to his side. And it may be added that this knife is not flourished in the butcher’s style we are accustomed to; it is more delicately treated, as though something surgical were contemplated. When bidden to “have by some surgeon,” nothing could be better than the sham curiosity with which he affects to search the bond for such a proviso, letting his knife travel down the lines, and the tone of “I cannot find it,” in a cold, helpless way, as if he had looked out of courtesy to his “young Judge,” who appeared to be on his side. The latter at last declares that there is no alternative, but that Antonio must yield his bosom to the knife; then the Jew’s impatience seems to override his courtesies, his gloating eyes never turn from his victim, and with greedy ferocity he advances suddenly with “Come, prepare!” When, however, Portia makes her “point” about the “drop of blood,” he drops his scales with a start; and, Gratiano taunting him, his eyes turn with a dazed look from one to the other; he says slowly, “Is—that—the—law?” Checked more and more in his reluctant offers, he at last bursts out with a demoniac snarl—“Why, then, the devil give him good of it!” Finally he turns to leave, tottering away bewildered and utterly broken. As may be imagined, the new Shylock excited a vast deal of controversy. The “old school” was scornful; and here again it would have been worth hearing the worthy Jack Ryder—whom we still must take to be the type of the good old past—on the subject.