Colonel Berkeley on landing astonished the two boatmen by throwing them a five-pound note! The innkeeper entertained us in his best and most magnificent style. We conversed a great deal, for Colonel Berkeley can talk, which is not always the case nor considered at all a necessary accomplishment in gentlemen of the present day. There are in fact various kinds of gentlemen. A man is a gentleman, according to Berkeley Craven's definition of the word, who has no visible means of gaining his livelihood; others have called Lord Deerhurst and Lord Barrymore and Lord Stair gentlemen, because they are Lords; and the system at White's Club, the members of which are all choice gentlemen of course, is and ever has been never to blackball any man who ties a good knot in his handkerchief, keeps his hands out of his breeches-pockets, and says nothing. For my part, I confess I like a man who can talk and contribute to the amusement of whatever society he may be placed in; and that is the reason I am always glad to find myself in the company of Lord Hertford, notwithstanding he is so often blackballed at White's. Colonel Berkeley and I conversed on many subjects; but there was one which was a favourite with us both--plays. Berkeley was mad for acting Shakespeare's plays, I for reading them. We were both lost in wonder as to how the poet, or any one man breathing, could have acquired such a perfect knowledge of human nature, in every class of society, in every gradation from kings downwards. I however pointed out one exception, remarking that I did not conceive, from the little I had seen or heard of Jews, that Shylock was at all a natural character or accurately drawn. "I never in my life," I continued, "remember having heard of a Jew being hanged for murder! The Mosaic laws are less pure than ours; but they are more strictly followed. The most malicious Jew dares not shed blood, his strong fear of God prevents it; and that fear is religion. In short, such, I have heard, is the superstitious fear a Jew entertains of shedding blood, that even if he had made his mind up to take the life of a Christian, it would yet be accomplished without a drop of blood being spilt. I cannot with my very confined knowledge of these things venture to say that Jews have not been occasionally executed for murder; but I can almost venture to assert that blood-shedding is far from the characteristic vice of a Jew; and therefore is Shylock unnaturally drawn." "Recollect," returned Colonel Berkeley, "that Shylock is a Venetian Jew."