he is Shylock. In his hard, icy intellectuality, and his dry,
mummy-like tenacity of purpose, with a dash now and then of biting
sarcastic humour, we see the remains of a great and noble nature, out
of which all the genial sap of humanity has been pressed by
accumulated injuries. With as much elasticity of mind as stiffness of
neck, every step he takes but the last is as firm as the earth he
treads upon. Nothing can daunt, nothing disconcert him; remonstrance
cannot move, ridicule cannot touch, obloquy cannot exasperate him:
when he has not provoked them, he has been forced to bear them; and
now that he does provoke them, he is hardened against them. In a word,
he may be broken; he cannot be bent.

Shylock is great in every scene where he appears, yet each later scene
exhibits him in a new element or aspect of greatness. For as soon as
the Poet has set forth one side or phase of his character, he
forthwith dismisses that, and proceeds to another. For example, the
Jew's cold and penetrating sagacity, as also his malignant and
remorseless guile, are finely delivered in the scene with Antonio and
Bassanio, where he is first solicited for the loan. And the strength
and vehemence of passion, which underlies these qualities, is still
better displayed, if possible, in the scene with Antonio's two
friends, Solanio and Salarino, where he first avows his purpose of
exacting the forfeiture. One passage of this scene has always seemed
to me a peculiarly idiomatic strain of eloquence, steeped in a mixture
of gall and pathos; and I the rather notice it, because of the
wholesome lesson which Christians may gather from it. Of course the
Jew is referring to Antonio:

"He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my
losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains,
cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a
Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the
same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same Winter and Summer, as a Christian is? If
you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if
you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? revenge: if a
Christian wrong a Jew, what