o a stream of unity.

In this play Shakespeare has bequeathed to posterity one of his most
perfect works--powerful in its effect, and marvellous in its ingenuity.
While the language of the Jew is characterized by an assumption of
biblical phraseology, the appeal of Portia to the quality of mercy is
invested with a heavenly eloquence elevating the poet to sublimity.

From the opening to the closing scene,--from the moment when we hear of
the sadness, prophetic of evil, which depresses the spirit of Antonio,
till we listen at the last to the "playful prattling of two lovers in a
summer's evening," whose soft cadences are breathed through strains of
music,--all is a rapid succession of hope, fear, terror, and gladness;
exciting our sympathies now for the result of the merchant's danger; now
for the solution of a riddle on which hangs the fate of the wealthy
heiress; and now for the fugitive Jessica, who resigns her creed at the
shrine of womanly affection.

In the production of _The Merchant of Venice_ it has been my object to
combine with the poet's art a faithful representation of the picturesque
city; to render it again palpable to the traveller who actually gazed
upon the seat of its departed glory; and, at the same time, to exhibit
it to the student, who has never visited this once

"--pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy."

The far-famed place of St. Mark, with its ancient Church, the Kialto and
its Bridge, the Canals and Gondolas, the Historic Columns, the Ducal
Palace, and the Council Chamber, are successively presented to the
spectator. Venice is re-peopled with the past, affording truth to the
eye, and reflection to the mind.

The introduction of the Princes of Morocco and Arragon at Belmont,
hitherto omitted, is restored, for the purpose of more strictly adhering
to the author's text, and of heightening the interest attached to the
episode of the caskets.

The costumes and customs are represented as existing about the year
1600, when Shakespeare wrote the play. The dresses are chiefly selected
from a work by Cesare Vecellio, entitled "Degli Habiti Antichi e Moderni
di diverse Parti del Mondo. In Venetia, 1590;" as well as from other
sources to be found in the British Museum, whence I derive my authority
for the procession of the Doge in the first scene. If the stage is to
be considered and upheld as an institution from which instructive and
intellectual enj