I flung down my hat, I believe, with rather too marked an expression of impatience; but five minutes afterwards came a knock at the door. Mr. Montenero was announced, and I blessed my mother, my father, and the malt-tax, for having detained me at home. The first appearance of Mr. Montenero more than answered my expectations. He had that indescribable air, which, independently of the fashion of the day, or the mode of any particular country, distinguishes a gentleman--dignified, courteous, and free from affectation. From his features, he might have been thought a Spaniard--from his complexion, an East Indian; but he had a peculiar cast of countenance, which seemed not to belong to either nation. He had uncommonly black penetrating eyes, with a serious, rather melancholy, but very benevolent expression. He was past the meridian of life. The lines in his face were strongly marked; but they were not the common-place wrinkles of ignoble age, nor the contractions of any of the vulgar passions: they seemed to be the traces of thought and feeling. He entered into conversation directly and easily. I need not say that this conversation was immediately interesting, for he spoke of Berenice. His thanks to me were, I thought, peculiarly gentlemanlike, neither too much nor too little. Of course, I left him at liberty to attribute her indisposition to the heat of the playhouse, and I stood prepared to avoid mentioning Shylock to Jewish ears; but I was both surprised and pleased by the openness and courage with which he spoke on the very subject from which I had fancied he would have shrunk. Instead of looking for any excuse for Miss Montenero’s indisposition, he at once named the real cause; she had been, he said, deeply affected by the representation of Shylock; that detestable Jew, whom the genius of the greatest poet that ever wrote, and the talents of one of the greatest actors who had ever appeared, had conspired to render an object of public execration. “But recently arrived in London,” continued Mr. Montenero, “I have not had personal opportunity of judging of this actor’s talent; but no Englishman can have felt more strongly than I have, the power of your Shakspeare’s genius to touch and rend the human heart.”