ed do speak any thing.

BASSANIO.

Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.

PORTIA.

Well then, confess, and live.

BASSANIO.

Confess and love
Had been the very sum of my confession!
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

A prominent feature in Portia's character is that confiding, buoyant
spirit, which mingles with all her thoughts and affections. And here let
me observe, that I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or
history, of any woman, distinguished for intellect of the highest
order, who was not also remarkable for this trusting spirit, this
hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the
most serious habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady
Wortley Montagu was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another
much more memorable. In her Corinne, whom she drew from herself, this
natural brightness of temper is a prominent part of the character. A
disposition to doubt, to suspect, and to despond, in the young, argues,
in general, some inherent weakness, moral or physical, or some miserable
and radical error of education; in the old, it is one of the first
symptoms of age; it speaks of the influence of sorrow and experience,
and foreshows the decay of the stronger and more generous powers of the
soul. Portia's strength of intellect takes a natural tinge from the
flush and bloom of her young and prosperous existence, and from her
fervent imagination. In the casket-scene, she fears indeed the issue of
the trial; on which more than her life is hazarded but while she
trembles, her hope is stronger than her fear. While Bassanio is
contemplating the caskets, she suffers herself to dwell for one moment
on the possibility of disappointment and misery.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And watery death-bed for him.

Then, immediately follows that revulsion of feeling, so beautifully
characteristic of the hopeful, trusting, mounting spirit of this noble
creature.

But he may win!
And what is music then?--then music is
Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it i