according to the discretion of the actor or reader. The intonation is ^ on the first group, and \ on the second, the melodies overlapping. Usually, too, the imperative motive is re-enforced by a drift of falling inflections.

But

If the reply were addressed to Antonio or Bassanio, this ordinary reading would be true to nature, to the circumstances, and to Shylock's ruthless attitude toward his enemies. he is speaking to the Duke. The Duke is the living embodiment of 'temporal power'; he can administer the law or set it aside, he can bestow or withhold justice and mercy. Shylock believes in the strict justice of his cruel claim, and that the law, fairly construed, will award him his pound of flesh; but, whatever his confidence in the merits of his case, his manner of address to the head of the State would be deferential, conciliatory, ingratiating. This blend of confidence and deference is best embodied, I venture to think, by employing the referential melody, vividly outlined, with a strong inflectional echo on the emphatic words.

What judgment

shall I dread, +doing no wrong?

He

9. FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Shakespeare. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. 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 my 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? Is he not 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 summer and winter 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 should his sufferance be by

Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.

To read the above speech well and truthfully, aside from its dramatic values, demands not only accurate analysis for the determination of the sense, but a clear insight into the philosophy and purpose of inflection and intonation, and a voice under the absolute control of a correct ear. It is possible to apprehend the sense of this and many another passage clearly, and to convey, unintentionally and unconsciously, a sense altogether different. Every element of voice employed, must be so ordered as to illuminate, confirm and enforce the exact meaning of the words, or the reading is immoral, and the voice is a liar and a thief.

Of course, the emotional values of the lines should be embodied; but there is room for varieties of opinion-great latitude of choice as to phase, degree, and blend, in that department of elocutionary art. No two readers, perhaps,nor the same reader, at different times,-would, or could, give a vivid passage of any extent precisely the same emotional coloring. The sense, however, the thought-the intellectual value-must always be brought out exactly and distinctly, or the reading is positively bad.

As a simple pointed condition, the first clause would take theor the sweep, closing with the wave inflection, ~, on 'else'; but Shylock does not mean,-'If I am unable to find or devise any other use for it, at least it will feed my revenge.' He does not expect, or wish-he will not permit, Antonio's flesh to feed anything but his own revenge. With climax contour, ^, culminating in a strong falling slide or wave on 'else', the effect of finality on a clause of incomplete sense, suggests, by its paradoxical character, that the speaker means more than his words in themselves convey; that is, it is made elliptical:—as if Shylock actually added, in words,—

'And I know that it will not, I am glad that it will not; nay, more--it shall not!' 'My revenge' is an emphatic phrase: 'my' should be given quantity and stress, the vowel having the i sound. I read the second clause referentially,-that is, with the melody; doing away with the cadence at the period, and suggesting an ellipsis like,-‘And that is enough for me!'

The second sentence, as far as the semicolon, should be read with climax intonation, culminating on 'million'; there should be a grouping pause at the end of the first clause, but no break in the melody. The remaining clauses of this sentence should be rendered in couples, so far as grouping by pause is concerned, since 'losses' suggest 'gains'; 'friends,' 'enemies'; and with Shylock, his 'nation' and his 'bargains' are as dear as his heart's blood,-equally dear,-thought of together and spoken of in the same breath. Note the same collocation of ideas in another of Shylock's speeches:

I hate him for he is a Christain;

But more, for that, in low simplicity,

He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

and farther on, in the same speech:

He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest.

Between the members of each couple make but the briefest pause; between the couples, a short breathing pause. Give all the verbs falling slides or sweeps; all the nouns, except 'enemies', rising slides or sweeps. From 'laughed' to and including 'friends', let the radical of each successive accented syllable be struck at higher and higher pitch, and let 'cooled my enemies' receive the falling sweep; or,-give the

continuous rising-sweep contour through the first two couples, and the falling sweep through the last couple. Either of these modes of treatment will melodically combine all of the six clauses into one consistent intonation; and, with the added effect of crescendo force and volume, will picture a cumulative fury of resentment. It will also prevent the monotony that usually results from the uniformity of verbal construction, the equal length, the sameness of accent, and the inflective mechanism of the clauses themselves.

The next two sentences- question and answer-should have falling sweeps,-that of the answer overlapping that of the question, and, with its cadence, of course reaching a lower pitch.

The next series of questions, concluding with 'shall we not revenge?' is the especial crux of the example.

What do they mean?-that is, what is Shylock's purpose in asking them? Unless that purpose is ascertained and vocally embodied, the reading, however charged with dramatic feeling, will be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' I saw two noted actors, several seasons apart in time, in the character of Shylock, and carefully watched their readings of this speech, at this point. John McCullough gave each emphatic word a wide rising inflection or sweep, and debarred himself from light, shade, and contrast, by keeping altogether 'in the hills and upper regions' of his compass. Henry Irving, when I heard him, uniformly employed falling inflections and sweeps on the words of emphasis. Doctor Rush, in his 'Philosophy', lays down still another mode of dealing with the passage. These great ones cannot possibly all be right, and may, possibly, all be wrong. How should these questions be read? and why?

If I am right, the questions are an analogical argument and a conclusion. Grant the premises, and the conclusion

inevitably follows.

However colored with passion the tones may be, the mental purpose of the scornful Jew should speak unmistakably through the media of inflection and melody.

The argument is, in brief, that, if Jew and Christian are alike in physical attributes, they are alike in mind, spirit, motive, and conduct.

The questions in regard to the former-the physical characteristics are direct in form, and should bear the rising intonation of real inquiry. Shylock seeks, and eagerly solicits, the concessive yes as his basis of deduction; his premises must be admitted, that he may draw his conclusion. He is trying to make a rational defense of his attitude of revenge.

'Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,' then, should be read with rising sweeps and emphatic rising or rising-wave inflections; for they refer to physical attributes; and the intonation eagerly seeks assent. 'Senses, affections, passions,' should, each, have a wide falling sweep, and, taken together, their overlapping should constitute them an aggregate falling sweep; because they are the deduction, the conclusion, from the premise. The argument stands:-'If, like the Christian, the Jew has eyes, hands, organs, and dimensions, as you must admit he does, then is he human, like the Christian, and has of necessity the same senses, affections, and passions.'

Shylock proceeds to compare Jew and Christian in their response to physical environment and contingency, adding instance to instance. In the long sentence, beginning, 'Is he not fed,' it is best, I think, to make group of each of the first two clauses, and to mass the third and fourth as closely as possible,-the 'healing' being suggested by 'diseases'; the change in movement, too, being a desirable 'touch of nature.' In reading so long a sentence, if the melody were made a continuous and vivid rising progression