When apprized of this flaw, You never yet saw Such an awfully marked elongation of jaw As in Shylock, who cried, "Plesh ma heart! ish dat law?"-- --Off went his three hats, And he look'd as the cats Do, whenever a mouse has escaped from their claw. "--Ish't the law?"--why the thing won't admit of a query-- "No doubt of the fact, Only look at the act; _Acto quinto, cap: tertio, Dogi Falieri_-- Nay, if, rather than cut, you'd relinquish the debt, The Law, Master Shy, has a hold on you yet. See Foscari's 'Statutes at large'--'If a Stranger A Citizen's life shall, with malice, endanger, The whole of his property, little or great, Shall go, on conviction, one half to the State, And one to the person pursued by his hate; And, not to create Any farther debate, The Doge, if he pleases, may cut off his pate.' So down on your marrowbones, Jew, and ask mercy! Defendant and Plaintiff are now _wisy wersy_." What need to declare How pleased they all were At so joyful an end to so sad an affair? Or Bassanio's delight at the turn things had taken, His friend having saved, to the letter, his bacon?-- How Shylock got shaved, and turn'd Christian, though late, To save a life-int'rest in half his estate?-- How the dandified Lawyer, who'd managed the thing, Would not take any fee for his pains but a ring Which Mrs. Bassanio had giv'n to her spouse, With injunctions to keep it, on leaving the house?-- How when he, and the spark Who appeared as his clerk, Had thrown off their wigs, and their gowns, and their jetty coats, There stood Nerissa and Portia in petticoats?-- How they pouted, and flouted, and acted the cruel, Because Lord Bassanio had not kept his jewel?-- How they scolded and broke out, Till, having their joke out, They kissed, and were friends, and, all blessing and blessed, Drove home by the light Of a moonshiny night, Like the one in which Troilus, the brave Trojan knight, Sat astride on a wall, and sigh'd after his Cressid?-- All this, if 'twere meet, I'd go on to repeat, But a story spun out so's by no means a treat, So, I'll merely relate what, in spite of the pains I have taken to rummage among his remains, No edition of Shakspeare, I've met with, contains; But, if the account which I've heard be the true one, We shall have it, no doubt, before long, in a new one. In an MS., then, sold For its full weight in gold, And knock'd down to my friend, Lord Tomnoddy, I'm told It's recorded that Jessy, coquettish and vain, Gave her husband, Lorenzo, a good deal of pain; Being mildly rebuked, she levanted again, Ran away with a Scotchman, and, crossing the main, Became known by the name of the "Flower of Dumblane."