Anna Brownell Jameson : Characteristics of Women

SHAKSPEARE'S HEROINES.

CHARACTERISTICS
OF
WOMEN,
MORAL, POETICAL, AND HISTORICAL.

BY
MRS. JAMESON

LONDON: 1893
[Originally 1832]

CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN

PORTIA.

We hear it asserted, not seldom by way of compliment to us women, that intellect is of no sex. If this mean that the same faculties of mind are common to men and women, it is true; in any other signification it appears to me false, and the reverse of a compliment. The intellect of woman bears the same relation to that of man as her physical organization;—it is inferior in power, and different in kind. That certain women have surpassed certain men in bodily strength or intellectual energy, does not contradict the general principle founded in nature. The essential and invariable distinction appears to me this: in men the intellectual faculties exist more self-poised and self-directed—more independent of the rest of the character, than we ever find them in women, with whom talent, however predominant, is in a much greater degree modified by the sympathies and moral qualities.

In thinking over all the distinguished women I can at this moment call to mind, I recollect but one, who, in the exercise of a rare talent, belied her sex, but the moral qualities had been first perverted.* It is from

* Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian artist of the seventeenth century, painted one or two pictures, considered admirable as works

40 CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN

not knowing, or not allowing, this general principle, that men of genius have committed some signal mistakes. They have given us exquisite and just delineations of the more peculiar characteristics of women, as modesty, grace, tenderness; and when they have attempted to portray them with the powers common to both sexes, as wit, energy, intellect, they have blundered in some respect; they could form no conception of intellect which was not masculine, and therefore have either suppressed the feminine attributes altogether and drawn coarse caricatures, or they have made them completely artificial.* Women distinguished for wit may sometimes appear masculine and flippant, but the cause must be sought elsewhere than in nature, who disclaims all such. Hence the witty and intellectual ladies of our comedies and novels are all in the fashion of some particular time; they are like some old portraits which can still amuse and please by the beauty of the workmanship, in spite of the graceless costume or grotesque accompaniments, but from which we turn to worship with ever-new delight the Floras and goddesses of Titian—the saints and the virgins of Raffaelle and Domenichino. So the Millamants and Belindas, the Lady Townleys and Lady Teazles are out of date, while Portia and Rosalind, in whom nature and the feminine character

of art, of which the subjects are the most Yieious and barbarous conceivable. I remember one of these in the gallery of Florence, which I looked at once, but once, and wished then, as I do now, for the piirilege of burning it to ashes.

* Lucy Ashton, in the “Bride of Lammermoor,” may be placed next to Desdemona; Diana Vernon is (comparatively) a failure, as every woman will allow; while the masculine Lady Geraldine, in Miss Edgeworth’s tale of “Ennui,” and the intellectual Corinne, are consistent, essential women; the distinction is more easily felt than analyzed.

PORTIA. 41

are paramount, remain bright and fresh to the fancy as when first created.

Portia, Isabella, Beatrice, and Rosalind, may be classed together, as characters of intellect, because, when compared with others, they are at once distinguished by their mental superiority. In Portia it is intellect, kindled into romance by a poetical imagination; in Isabel, it is intellect elevated by religious principle; in Beatrice, intellect animated by spirit; in Rosalind, intellect softened by sensibility. The wit which is lavished on each is profound, or pointed, or sparkling, or playful—but always feminine; like spirits distilled from flowers, it always reminds us of its origin; it is a volatile essence, sweet as powerful; and to pursue the comparison a step further, the wit of Portia is like attar of roses, rich and concentrated; that of Rosalind, like cotton dipped in aromatic vinegar; the wit of Beatrice is like sal volatile; and that of Isabel, like the incense wafted to heaven. Of these four exquisite characters, considered as dramatic and poetical conceptions, it is difficult to pronounce which is most perfect in its way, most admirably drawn, most highly finished. But if considered in another point of view, as women and individuals, as breathing realities, clothed in flesh and blood, I believe we must assign the first rank to Portia, as uniting in herself in a more eminent degree than the others, all the noblest and most loveable qualities that ever met together in woman; and presenting a complete personification of Petrarch’s exquisite epitome of female perfection:

Il vago spirito ardento,
E ’n alto intelleto, un puro core.

It is singular, that hitherto no critical justice has

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been done to the character of Portia; it is yet more wonderful, that one of the finest writers on the eternal subject of Shakspeare and his perfections, should accuse Portia of pedantry and affectation, and confess she is not a great favorite of his—a confession quite worthy of him, who avers his predilection for servant-maids, and his preference of the Fannies and the Pamelas over the Clementinas and Clarissas.* Schlegel, who has given several pages to a rapturous eulogy on the “Merchant of Venice,” simply designates Portia as a “rich, beautiful, clever heiress:”—whether the fault lie in the writer or translator, I do protest against the word clever.† Portia clever! what an epithet to apply to this heavenly compound of talent, feeling, wisdom, beauty, and gentleness! Now would it not be well, if this common and comprehensive word were more accurately defined, or at least more accurately used? It signifies properly, not so much the possession of high powers, as dexterity in the adaptation of certain faculties (not necessarily of a high order) to a certain end or aim—not always the worthiest. It implies something common-place, inasmuch as it speaks the presence of the active and perceptive, with a deficiency of the feeling and reflective powers; and applied to a woman, does it not almost invariably suggest the idea of something we should distrust or shrink from, if not allied to a higher nature? The profligate Frenchwomen, who ruled the councils of Europe in the middle of the last century, were clever women; and that philosopheress, Madame du Ch‰telet, who managed, at one and the same moment, the thread of an intrigue,

* Hazlitt’s “Essays,” vol. ii., p. 167.

† I am informed that the original German word is geistreicht, literally, rich in soul or spirit, a just and beautiful epithet. 2d Edit.

PORTIA. 43

her cards at piquet, and a calculation in algebra, was a very clever woman! If Portia had been created as a mere instrument to bring about a dramatic catastrophe—if she had merely detected the flaw in Antonio’s bond, and used it as a means to baffle the Jew, she might have been pronounced a clever woman. But what Portia does, is forgotten in what she is. The rare and harmonious blending of energy, reflection and feeling, in her fine character, make the epithet clever sound like a discord as applied to her, and place her infinitely beyond the slight praise of Richardson and Schlegel, neither of whom appears to have fully comprehended her.

These and other critics have been apparently so dazzled and engrossed by the amazing character of Shylock, that Portia has received less than justice at their hands; while the fact is, that Shylock is not a finer or more finished character in his way, than Portia is in hers. These two splendid figures are worthy of each other; worthy of being placed together within the same rich framework of enchanting poetry, and glorious and graceful forms. She hangs beside the terrible, inexorable Jew, the brilliant lights of her character set off by the shadowy power of his, like a magnificent beauty-breathing Titian by the side of a gorgeous Rembrandt.

Portia is endued with her own share of those delightful qualities, which Shakspeare has lavished on many of his female characters; but besides the dignity, the sweetness, and tenderness which should distinguish her sex generally, she is individualized by qualities peculiar to herself; by her high mental powers, her enthusiasm of temperament, her decision of purpose, and her buoyancy of spirit. These are innate; she has other distinguishing qualities more external, and

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which are the result of the circumstances in which she is placed. Thus she is the heiress of a princely name and countless wealth; a train of obedient pleasures have ever waited round her; and from infancy she has breathed an atmosphere redolent of perfume and blandishment. Accordingly there is a commanding grace, a high-bred, airy elegance, a spirit of magnificence in all that she does and says, as one to whom splendor had been familiar from her very birth. She treads as though her footsteps had been among marble palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o’er cedar floors and pavements of jasper and porphyry—amid gardens full of statues, and flowers, and fountains, and haunting music. She is full of penetrative wisdom, and genuine tenderness, and lively wit; but as she has never known want, or grief, or fear, or disappointment, her wisdom is without a touch of the sombre or the sad; her affections are all mixed up with faith, hope and joy; and her wit has not a particle of malevolence or causticity.

It is well known that the “Merchant of Venice” is founded on two different tales; and in weaving together his double plot in a so masterly a manner, Shakspeare has rejected altogether the character of the astutious lady of Belmont with her magic potions, who figures in the Italian novel. With yet more refinement, he has thrown out all the licentious part of the story, which some of his contemporary dramatists would have seized on with avidity, and made the best or the worst of it possible; and he has substituted the trial of the caskets from another source.*

* In the “Mercatante di Venezia” of Ser. Giovanni, we have the whole story of Antonio and Bassanio, and part of the story, but not the character, of Portia. The incident of the caskets is from the “Gesta Romanorum.”

PORTIA. 45

We are not told expressly where Belmont is situated; but as Bassanio takes ship to go thither from Venice, and as we find them afterwards ordering horses from Belmont to Padua, we will imagine Portia’s hereditary palace as standing on some lovely promontory between Venice and Trieste, overlooking the blue Adriatic, with the Friuli mountains or the Euganean hills for its background, such as we often see in one of Claude’s or Poussin’s elysian landscapes. In a scene, in a home like this, Shakspeare, having first exorcised the original possessor, has placed his Portia: and so endowed her, that all the wild, strange, and moving circumstances of the story, become natural, probable, and necessary in connection with her. That such a woman should be chosen by the solving of an enigma, is not surprising; herself and all around her, the scene, the country, the age in which she is placed, breathe of poetry, romance and enchantment.

From the four quarters of the earth they come
To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint.
The Hyrcanian desert, and the vasty wilds
Of wild Arabia, are as thoroughfares now,
For princes to come view fair Portia;
The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
Spits in the face of heaven is no bar
To stop the foreign spirits; but they come
As o’er a brook to see fair Portia.

The sudden plan which she forms for the release of her husband’s friend, her disguise, and her deportment as the young and learned doctor, would appear forced and improbable in any other woman; but in Portia are the simple and natural result of her character.* The

* In that age, delicate points of law were not determined by the ordinary judges of the provinces, but by doctors of law, who were called from Bologna, Padua, and other places celebrated for their legal colleges.

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quickness with which she perceives the legal advantage which may be taken of the circumstances; the spirit of adventure with which she engages in the masquerading, and the decision, firmness, and intelligence with which she executes her generous purpose, are all in perfect keeping, and nothing appears forced—nothing as introduced merely for theatrical effect.

But all the finest parts of Portia’s character are brought to bear in the trial scene. There she shines forth all her divine self. Her intellectual powers, her elevated sense of religion, her high honorable principles, her best feelings as a woman, are all displayed. She maintains at first a calm self-command, as one sure of carrying her point in the end; yet the painful heart-thrilling uncertainty in which she keeps the whole court, until suspense verges upon agony, is not contrived for effect merely; it is necessary and inevitable. She has two objects in view; to deliver her husband’s friend, and to maintain her husband’s honor by the discharge of his just debt, though paid out of her own wealth ten times over. It is evident that she would rather owe the safety of Antonio to anything rather than the legal quibble with which her cousin Bellario has armed her, and which she reserves as a last resource. Thus all the speeches addressed to Shylock in the first instance, are either direct or indirect experiments on his temper and feelings. She must be understood from the beginning to the end, as examining with intense anxiety the effect of her own words on his mind and countenance; as watching for that relenting spirit, which she hopes to awaken either by reason or persuasion. She begins by an appeal to his mercy, in that matchless piece of eloquence, which, with an irresistible and solemn pathos, falls upon the heart

PORTIA. 47

like “gentle dew from heaven;”—but in vain; for that blessed dew drops not more fruitless and unfelt on the parched sand of the desert, than do these heavenly words upon the ear of Shylock. She next attacks his avarice;

Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offered thee!

Then she appeals, in the same breath, both to his avarice and his pity:

Be merciful!
Take thrice thy money. Bid me tear the bond.

All that she says afterwards—her strong expressions, which are calculated to strike a shuddering horror through the nerves—the reflections she interposes—her delays and circumlocution to give time for any latent feeling of commiseration to display itself—all, all are premeditated and tend in the same manner to the object she has in view. Thus—

You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
Therefore lay bear your bosom!

These two speeches, though addressed apparently to Antonio, are spoken at Shylock, and are evidently intended to penetrate his bosom. In the same spirit she asks for the balance to weigh the pound of flesh; and entreats of Shylock to have a surgeon ready—

Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,
To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death!
SHYLOCK.
Is it so nominated in the bond?
PORTIA.
It is not so expressed—but what of that?
’Twere good you do so much, for charity.

So unwilling is her sanguine and generous spirit to

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resign all hope, or to believe that humanity is absolutely extinct in the bosom of the Jew, that she calls on Antonio, as a last resource, to speak for himself. His gentle, yet manly resignation—the deep pathos of his farewell, and the affectionate allusion to herself in his last address to Bassanio—

Commend me to your honorable wife;
Say how I lov’d you, speak me fair in death, &c.

are well calculated to swell that emotion, which through the whole scene must have been laboring suppressed within her heart.

At length the crisis arrives, for patience and womanhood can endure no longer; and when Shylock, carrying his savage bent “to the last hour of act,” springs on his victim—“A sentence! come, prepare!” then the smothered scorn, indignation, and disgust, burst forth with an impetuosity which interferes with the judicial solemnity she had at first affected; particularly in the speech—

Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less, nor more,
But just the pound of flesh; if thou tak’st more,
Or less than a just pound,—be it but so much
As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance,
Or the division of the twentieth part
Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair,—
Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.

But she afterwards recovers her propriety, and triumphs with a cooler scorn and a more self-possessed exultation.

It is clear that, to feel the full force and dramatic beauty of this marvellous scene, we must go along with Portia as well as with Shylock; we must under-

PORTIA. 49

stand her concealed purpose, keep in mind her noble motives, and pursue in our fancy the under current of feeling, working in her mind throughout. The terror and the power of Shylock’s character,—his deadly and inexorable malice,—would be too oppressive; the pain and pity too intolerable, and the horror of the possible issue too overwhelming, but for the intellectual relief afforded by this double source of interest and contemplation.

I come now to that capacity for warm and generous affection, that tenderness of heart, which render Portia not less loveable as a woman, than admirable for her mental endowments. The affections are to the intellect, what the forge is to the metal; it is they which temper and shape it to all good purposes, and soften, strengthen, and purify it. What an exquisite stroke of judgment in the poet, to make the mutual passion of Portia and Bassanio, though unacknowledged to each other, anterior to the opening of the play! Bassanio’s confession very properly comes first;—

BASSANIO.
In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and fairer than that word,
Of wond’rous virtues; sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages;
*****

and prepares us for Portia’s half betrayed, unconscious election of this most graceful and chivalrous admirer—

NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so he was called.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN

NERISSA. True, madam; he of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

PORTIA. I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

Our interest is thus awakened for the lovers from the very first; and what shall be said of the casket scene with Bassanio, where every line which Portia speaks is so worthy of herself, so full of sentiment and beauty, and poetry and passion? Too naturally frank for disguise, too modest to confess her depth of love while the issue of the trial remains in suspense, the conflict between love and fear, and maidenly dignity, cause the most delicious confusion that ever tinged a woman’s cheek, or dropped in broken utterance from her lips.

I pray you, tarry, pause a day or two,
Before you hazard; for in choosing wrong,
I lose your company; therefore, forbear a while;
There’s something tells me (but it is not love)
I would not lose you; and you know yourself,
Hate counsels not in such a quality;
But lest you should not understand me well,
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought),
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right,—but then I am forsworn;—
So will I never be; so you may miss me;—
But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o’erlooked me, and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,—
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,—
And so all yours!

The short dialogue between the lovers is exquisite.

PORTIA.

BASSANIO.
Let me choose;
For, as I am, I live upon the rack.
PORTIA.
Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess
What treason there is mingled with your love.
BASSANIO.
None, but that ugly treason of mistrust,
Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love
There may as well be amity and life
Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.
PORTIA.
Ay! but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak anything.
BASSANIO.
Promise me life, and I’ll confess the troth.
PORTIA.
Well then, confess, and live.
BASSANIO.
Confess and love
Had been the very sum of my confession!
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

A prominent feature in Portia’s character is that confiding, buoyant spirit, which mingles with all her thoughts and affections. And here let me observe, that I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or history, of any woman, distinguished for intellect of the highest order, who was not also remarkable for this trusting spirit, this hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley Montagu was one instance; Madame de Sta‘l furnishes another much more memorable. In

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her Corinne, whom she drew from herself, this natural brightness of temper is a prominent part of the character. A disposition to doubt, to suspect, and to despond, in the young, argues, in general, some inherent weakness, moral or physical, or some miserable and radical error of education; in the old, it is one of the first symptoms of age; it speaks of the influence of sorrow and experience, and foreshows the decay of the stronger and more generous powers of the soul. Portia’s strength of intellect takes a natural tinge from the flush and bloom of her young and prosperous existence, and from her fervent imagination. In the casket-scene, she fears indeed the issue of the trial, on which more than her life is hazarded; but while she trembles, her hope is stronger than her fear. While Bassanio is contemplating the caskets, she suffers herself to dwell for one moment on the possibility of disappointment and misery.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music; that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall bo the stream
And watery death-bed for him.

Then immediately follows that revulsion of feeling, so beautifully characteristic of the hopeful, trusting, mounting spirit of this noble creature.

But he may win!
And what is music then?—then music is
Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch; such it is
As are those dulcet sounds at break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear,
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes
With no less presence, but with much more love

PORTIA.

Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea monster. I stand here for sacrifice.

Here, not only the feeling itself, born of the elastic and sanguine spirit which had never been touched by grief, but the images in which it comes arrayed to her fancy,—the bridegroom waked by music on his wedding morn,—the new-crowned monarch,—the comparison of Bassanio to the young Alcides, and of herself to the daughter of Laomedon,—are all precisely what would have suggested themselves to the fine poetical imagination of Portia in such a moment.

Her passionate exclamations of delight, when Bassanio has fixed on the right casket, are as strong as though she had despaired before. Fear and doubt she could repel; the native elasticity of her mind bore up against them; yet she makes us feel, that, as the sudden joy overpowers her almost to fainting, the disappointment would as certainly have killed her.

How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy?
O love! be moderate, allay thy ecstasy;
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess;
I feel too much thy blessing; make it less,
For fear I surfeit!

Her subsequent surrender of herself in heart and soul, of her maiden freedom, and her vast possessions, can never be read without deep emotions; for not only all the tenderness and delicacy of a devoted woman, are here blended with all the dignity which becomes the princely heiress of Belmont, but the serious, measured self-possession of her address to her lover, when all suspense is over, and all concealment superfluous, is

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most beautifully consistent with the character. It is, in truth, an awful moment, that in which a gifted woman first discovers, that besides talents and powers, she has also passions and affections; when she first begins to suspect their vast importance in the sum of her existence; when she first confesses that her happiness is no longer in her own keeping, but is surrendered for ever and for ever into the dominion of another! The possession of uncommon powers of mind are so far from affording relief or resource in the first intoxicating surprise—I had almost said terror—of such a revolution, that they render it more intense. The sources of thought multiply beyond calculation the sources of feeling; and mingled, they rush together, a torrent deep as strong. Because Portia is endued with that enlarged comprehension which looks before and after, she does not feel the less, but the more; because from the height of her commanding intellect she can contemplate the force, the tendency, the consequences of her own sentiments—because she is fully sensible of her own situation, and the value of all she concedes—the concession is not made with less entireness and devotion of heart, less confidence in the truth and worth of her lover, than when Juliet, in a similar moment, but without any such intrusive reflections—any check but the instinctive delicacy of her sex, flings herself and her fortunes at the feet of her lover;

And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay,
And follow thee, my lord, through all the world.*

In Portia’s confession, which is not breathed from a moonlit balcony, but spoken only in the presence of her attendants and vassals, there is nothing of the

* “Romeo and Juliet,” act ii. scene 2.

PORTIA. 55

passionate self-abandonment of Juliet, nor of the artless simplicity of Miranda, but a consciousness and a tender seriousness, approaching to solemnity, which are not less touching.

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand
Such as I am; though for myself alone,
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
More rich; that only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something; which to term in gross,
Is an unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d,
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn, and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted. But now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself,
Are yours, my lord.

We must also remark that the sweetness, the solicitude, the subdued fondness which she afterwards displays, relative to the letter, are as true to the softness of her sex, as the generous self-denial with which she urges the departure of Bassanio (having first given him a husband’s right over herself and all her countless wealth) is consistent with a reflecting mind, and a spirit at once tender, reasonable, and magnanimous.

It is not only in the trial scene, that Portia’s acuteness, eloquence, and lively intelligence are revealed to

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us; they are displayed in the first instance, and kept up consistently to the end. Her reflections, arising from the most usual aspects of nature, and from the commonest incidents of life, are in such a poetical spirit, and are at the same time so pointed, so profound, that they have passed into familiar and daily application, with all the force of proverbs.

If to do, were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.

I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season, seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
A substitute shines as brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook,
Into the main of waters.

Her reflections on the friendship between her husband and Antonio are as full of deep meaning as of tenderness; and her portrait of a young coxcomb, in the same scene, is touched with a truth and spirit which show with what a keen observing eye she has looked upon men and things.

——I’ll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accoutred like young men,
I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with a braver grace;
And speak between the change of man and boy

PORTIA.

With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies—
How honorable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
I could not do with all; then I’ll repent,
And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,
That men shall swear I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth!

And in the description of her various suitors, in the first scene with Nerissa, what infinite power, wit, and vivacity! She half checks herself as she is about to give the reins to her sportive humor; “In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker.”—But if it carries her away, it is so perfectly good-natured, so temperately bright, so ladylike, it is ever without offence; and so far, most unlike the satirical, poignant, unsparing wit of Beatrice, “misprising what she looks on.” In fact, I can scarce conceive a greater contrast than between the vivacity of Portia and the vivacity of Beatrice. Portia, with all her airy brilliance, is supremely soft and dignified; everything she says or does, displays her capability for profound thought and feeling, as well as her lively and romantic disposition; and as I have seen in an Italian garden a fountain flinging round its wreaths of showery light, while the many-colored Iris hung brooding above it, in its calm and soul-felt glory; so in Portia the wit is ever kept subordinate to the poetry, and we still feel the tender, the intellectual, and the imaginative part of the character, as superior to, and presiding over, its spirit and vivacity.

In the last act, Shylock and his machinations being dismissed from our thoughts, and the rest of the

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dramatis person¾ assembled together at Belmont, all our interest and all our attention are riveted on Portia, and the conclusion leaves the most delightful impression on the fancy. The playful equivoque of the rings, the sportive trick she puts on her husband, and her thorough enjoyment of the jest, which she checks just as it is proceeding beyond the bounds of propriety, show how little she was displeased by the sacrifice of her gift, and are all consistent with her bright and buoyant spirit. In conclusion, when Portia invites her company to enter her palace to refresh themselves after their travels, and talk over “these events at full,” the imagination, unwilling to lose sight of the brilliant group, follows them in gay procession from the lovely moonlight garden to marble halls and princely revels, to splendor and festive mirth, to love and happiness!

Many women have possessed many of those qualities which render Portia so delightful. She is in herself a piece of reality, in whose possible existence we have no doubt; and yet a human being, in whom the moral, intellectual and sentient faculties should be so exquisitely blended and proportioned to each other; and these again, in harmony with all outward aspects and influences, probably never existed—certainly could not now exist. A woman constituted like Portia, and placed in this age, an in the actual state of society, would find society armed against her; and instead of being like Portia, a gracious, happy, beloved, and loving creature, would be a victim, immolated in fire to that multitudinous Moloch termed Opinion. With her the world without would be at war with the world within; in the perpetual strife, either her nature would “be subdued to the element it worked in,” and bending to a necessity it could neither escape nor

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approve, lose at last something of its original brightness; or otherwise—a perpetual spirit of resistance, cherished as a safeguard, might perhaps in the end destroy the equipoise; firmness would become pride and self-assurance; and the soft, sweet, feminine texture of the mind, settle into rigidity. Is there then no sanctuary for such a mind 1—Where shall it find a refuge from the world?—Where seek for strength against itself? Where, but in heaven?

Camiola, in Massinger’s “Maid of Honor,” is said to emulate Portia; and the real story of Camiola (for she is an historical personage) is very beautiful. She was a lady of Messina, who lived in the beginning of the fourteenth century; and was the cotemporary of Queen Joanna, of Petrarch and Boccaccio. It fell out in those days, that Prince Orlando of Arragon, the younger brother of the King of Sicily, having taken the command of a naval armament against the Neapolitans, was defeated, wounded, taken prisoner, and confined by Robert of Naples (the father of Queen Joanna) in one of his strongest castles. As the prince had distinguished himself by his enmity to the Neapolitans, and by many exploits against them, his ransom was fixed at an exorbitant sum, and his captivity was unusually severe; while the King of Sicily, who had some cause of displeasure against his brother, and imputed to him the defeat of his armament, refused either to negotiate for his release, or to pay the ransom demanded.

Orlando, who was celebrated for his fine person and reckless valor, was apparently doomed to languish away the rest of his life in a dungeon, when Camiola Turinga, a rich Sicilian heiress, devoted the half of her fortune to release him. But as such an action

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might expose her to evil comments, she made it a condition, that Orlando should marry her. The prince gladly accepted the terms, and sent her the contract of marriage, signed by his hand; but no sooner was he at liberty, than he refused to fulfil it, and even denied all knowledge of his benefactress.

Camiola appealed to the tribunal of state, produced the written contract, and described the obligations she had heaped on this ungrateful and ungenerous man; sentence was given against him, and he was adjudged to Camiola, not only as her rightful husband, but as a property which, according to the laws of war in that age, she had purchased with her gold. The day of marriage was fixed; Orlando presented himself with a splendid retinue; Camiola also appeared, decorated as for her bridal; but instead of bestowing her hand on the recreant, she reproached him in the presence of all with his breach of faith, declared her utter contempt for his baseness; and then freely bestowing on him the sum paid for his ransom, as a gift worthy of his mean soul, she turned away, and dedicated herself and her heart to heaven. In this resolution she remained inflexible, though the king and all the court united in entreaties to soften her. She took the veil; and Orlando, henceforth regarded as one who had stained his knighthood, and violated his faith, passed the rest of his life as a dishonored man, and died in obscurity.

Camiola, in “The Maid of Honor,” is, like Portia, a wealthy heiress, surrounded by suitors, and “queen o’er herself;” the character is constructed upon the same principles, as great intellectual power, magnanimity of temper, and feminine tenderness; but not only do pain and disquiet, and the change induced by unkind and inauspicious influences, enter into this sweet

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picture to mar and cloud its happy beauty,—but the portrait itself may be pronounced out of drawing;—for Massinger apparently had not sufficient delicacy of sentiment to work out his own conception of the character with perfect consistency. In his adaptation of the story, he represents the mutual love of Orlando and Camiola as existing previous to the captivity of the former, and on his part declared with many vows of eternal faith, yet she requires a written contract of marriage before she liberates him. It will perhaps be said that she has penetrated his weakness, and anticipates his falsehood; miserable excuse!—how could a magnanimous woman love a man, whose falsehood she believes but possible?—or loving him, how could she deign to secure herself by such means against the consequences? Shakspeare and Nature never committed such a solecism. Camiola doubts before she has been wronged; the firmness and assurance in herself border on harshness. What in Portia is the gentle wisdom of a noble nature, appears, in Camiola, too much a spirit of calculation; it savors a little of the counting-house. As Portia is the heiress of Belmont, and Camiola a merchant’s daughter, the distinction may be proper and characteristic, but it is not in favor of Camiola. The contrast may be thus illustrated;

CAMIOLA. You have heard of Bertoldo’s captivity, and the king’s neglect, the greatness of his ransom; fifty thousand crowns, Adorni! Two parts of my estate! Yet I so love the gentleman, for to yon I will confess my weakness, that I purpose now, when he is forsaken by the king and his own hopes, to ransom him. Maid of Honor, act iii.

PORTIA.
What sum owes he the Jew?

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BASSANIO.
For me—three thousand ducats.
PORTIA.
What! no more!
Pay him six thousand and deface the bond,
Double six thousand, and then treble that,
Before a friend of this description
Shall lose a hair thro’ my Bassanio’s fault.
—You shall have gold
To pay the petty debt twenty times o’er.
Merchant of Venice.

Camiola, who is a Sicilian, might as well have been born at Amsterdam; Portia could have only existed in Italy. Portia is profound as she is brilliant; Camiola is sensible and sententious; she asserts her dignity very successfully; but we cannot for a moment imagine Portia as reduced to the necessity of asserting hers. The idiot Sylli, in “The Maid of Honor,” who follows Camiola like one of the deformed dwarfs of old time, is an intolerable violation of taste and propriety, and it sensibly lowers our impression of the principal character. Shakspeare would never have placed Sir Andrew Aguecheek in constant and immediate approximation with such a woman as Portia.

Lastly, the charm of the poetical coloring is wholly wanting in Camiola, so that when she is placed in contrast with the glowing eloquence, the luxuriant grace, the buoyant spirit of Portia, the effect is somewhat that of coldness and formality. Notwithstanding the dignity and the beauty of Massinger’s delineation, and the noble self-devotion of Camiola, which I acknowledge and admire, the two characters will admit of no comparison as sources of contemplation and pleasure.

*****

PORTIA.

It is observable that something of the intellectual brilliance of Portia is reflected on the other female characters of the “Merchant of Venice,” so as to preserve in the midst of contrast a certain harmony and keeping. Thus Jessica, though properly kept subordinate, is certainly

A most beautiful Pagan—a most sweet Jew.

She cannot be called a sketch—or if a sketch, she is like one of those dashed off in glowing colors from the rainbow palette of a Rubens; she has a rich tinge of orientalism shed over her, worthy of her eastern origin. In any other play, and in any other companionship than that cf the matchless Portia, Jessica would make a very beautiful heroine of herself. Nothing can be more poetically, more classically fanciful and elegant, than the scenes between her and Lorenzo;—the celebrated moonlight dialogue, for instance, which we all have by heart. Every sentiment she utters interests us for her;—more particularly her bashful self-reproach, when flying in the disguise of a page:

I am glad ’tis night, you do not look upon me,
For I am much asham’d of my exchange;
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy.

And the enthusiastic and generous testimony to the superior grace* and accomplishments of Portia comes with a peculiar grace from her lips.

Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match.
And on the wager lay two earthly women,
And Portia one, there must be something else
Pawned with the other; for the poor rude world
Hath not her fellow.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN

We should not, however, easily pardon her for cheating her father with so much indifference, but for the perception that Shylock values his daughter far beneath his wealth:

I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear!—would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!

Nerissa is a good specimen of a common genus of characters; she is a clever confidential waiting-woman, who has caught a little of her lady’s elegance and romance; she affects to be lively and sententious, falls in love, and makes her favor conditional on the fortune of the caskets, and in short mimics her mistress with good emphasis and discretion. Nerissa and the gay talkative Gratiano are as well matched as the incomparable Portia and her magnificent and captivating lover.