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 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 bare 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 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 sa