trated 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 you 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. 3_.

PORTIA.

What sum owes he the Jew?

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