ble, generous, and magnificent
in his dispositions; patient of trial, indulgent to weakness, free
where he loves, and frank where he hates; in prosperity modest, in
adversity cheerful; craving wealth for the uses of virtue, and as the
sinews of friendship;--his character is one which we never weary of
contemplating. The only blemish we perceive in him is his treatment of
Shylock: in this, though evidently much more the fault of the times
than of the man, we cannot help siding against him; than which we need
not ask a clearer instance of poetical justice. Yet even this we blame
rather as a wrong done to himself than to Shylock; inasmuch as the
latter, notwithstanding he has had such provocations, avowedly grounds
his hate mainly on those very things which make the strongest title to
a good man's love. For the Jew's revenge fastens not so much on the
man's abuse of him as on his kindness to others.

* * * * *

The friendship between the Merchant and his companions is such a
picture as Shakespeare evidently delighted to draw. And so fair a
sentiment is not apt to inhabit ignoble breasts. Bassanio, Gratiano,
and Salarino are each admirable in their way, and give a pleasing
variety to the scenes where they move. Bassanio, though something too
lavish of purse, is a model of a gentleman; in whose character and
behaviour all is order and propriety; with whom good manners are the
proper outside and visibility of a fair mind,--the natural foliage and
drapery of inward refinement and delicacy and rectitude. Well-bred, he
has that in him which, even had his breeding been ill, would have
raised him above it and made him a gentleman.

Gratiano and Salarino are two as clever, sprightly, and voluble
persons as any one need desire to be with; the chief difference
between them being, that the former _lets_ his tongue run on from good
impulses, while the latter _makes_ it do so for good ends. If not so
wise as Bassanio, they are more witty; and as much surpass him in
strength, as they fall short of him in beauty, of character. It is
observable that of the two Gratiano, while much the more prone to
flood us with his talk, also shows less subjection of the individual
to the common forms of social decorum; so that, if he behaves not
quite so well as the others, he gives livelier proof that what good
behaviour he has is his own; a growth from within, not a piece of
imitation. And we are rather agreeably surpr