l and his have gone to pieces.
Here, you see, comes another faint whiff of the real original play.

Then, clearly, the Doge can only apply to the Jews. Enter Shylock _a
propos_. The next scene is so awful to the Greek Chorus, who may be of a
business turn, that I am charitable enough not to reproduce it here;
but the percentage the Jew wants for the loan seems to be quite a
multiplication-table of tangible securities, and I only wonder the Doge
does not order him into the Adriatic. Amongst other demands, the Jew
procures all the Dogic jewels,--and then he wants all the jewels of the
Doge's daughter; indeed, Shylock becomes a most unreasonable party.

No sooner does he speak of the daughter, Ginevra by name, than in she
comes, jewel-casket in hand,--which leads the cynical Greek Chorus to
suppose that Mademoiselle is either _clairvoyante_ or prefers going
about with a box. The way in which that best of her sex offers up the
jewels on the patriotic shrine is really worthy of the applause bestowed
on the act; but when that pig of a Jew is not satisfied, when he insists
upon the diamond necklace Ginevra wears, as another preliminary to the
loan, people in the theatre quite shake with indignation.

Now the jewel has been the pattern young lady's mother's; and here comes
an opening for that appeal to the filial love of Frenchmen which is
never touched in vain. It is really a great and noble trait in the
French character, that filial love, not too questionable to be
demonstrative,--'tis a sure dramatist's French card, that appeal to the
love of mothers and fathers by their children.

Having procured the weight of this chain, which has caused Shylock the
loss of many friends in the house who have been inclined to like him
consequent upon the loss of that Abel-Moses-photograph,--Shylock departs
with this information, that he will bring the money to-morrow: which
assertion proves Shylock to be a strong man, if a hundred thousand marks
are as heavy as I take them to be.

Upon what little things do dramas, in common with lives, turn!
That necklace is the brilliant groundwork of the rest of the plot.
Why--why--why--WHY didn't Shakspeare think of the necklace?

And as I always must tell love-affairs as soon as I hear of them,--for,
as a rule, I live in country towns,--I may at once state that Ginevra
loved Andronic, and latter loved former, and they would not tell each
other, and the Doge knew nothing about it.

Yes, decidedly