friends, heated his enemies; Shylock deserved all this: but when he came
to, "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 not we 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 should his sufferance be, by Christian example?--Why,
revenge."

I felt at once horror of the individual Shylock, and submission to the
strength of his appeal. During the third act, during the Jessica scenes, I
longed so much to have a look at the Jewess, that I took an opportunity of
changing my position. The ladies in our box were now so happily occupied
with some young officers of the guards, that there was no farther danger of
their staring at the Jewess. I was so placed that I could see her, without
being seen; and during the succeeding acts, my attention was chiefly
directed to the study of all the changes in her expressive countenance. I
now saw and heard the play solely with reference to her feelings; I
anticipated every stroke which could touch her, and became every moment
more and more interested and delighted with her, from the perception that
my anticipations were just, and that I perfectly knew how to read her soul,
and interpret her countenance. I saw that the struggle to repress her
emotion was often the utmost she could endure; and at last I saw, or
fancied I saw, that she grew so pale, that, as she closed her eyes at the
same instant, I was certain she was going to faint; and quite forgetting
that I was an utter stranger to her, I started forward--and then
unprovided with an apology, could only turn to Mrs. Coates, and fear that