wholly irrelevant to the issue, and ought not to
have been allowed. They were eloquent, indeed, but had nothing whatever
to do with _the trial_, which arose on a very plain case at law: A owed
B three thousand ducats, due and not paid on an ascertained day.
Whereupon B moves the court for the penalty, and demands judgment. If
the defendant had no answer at law, there is an end to the case; and it
was very irregular, impertinent, and contrary to well-settled practice
for the defendant's counsel to endeavor to lead off the mind of the
court from the true issue of the case. Portia, in what she says of mercy
being 'twice blessed' and 'dropping like the gentle rain from heaven,'
&c., &c., was, I fear, 'talking buncombe,' and all that part of her
speech should be stricken from the record, especially as it was
addressed to the plaintiff instead of the court, a highly indecorous
proceeding. Instead of indulging in all this sentimentality, her true
course would have been to have filed a bill in equity against Shylock,
and have obtained an injunction on an _ex parte_ affidavit, which only
requires a little strong swearing; or to have patched up a suit against
him for obtaining his knife under false pretences; than which (under the
New York code of procedure) nothing can be easier. But what better
conduct of a suit can you expect from a she-advocate--an
attorney-in-petticoats?

And this brings me to another point of some delicacy, and which nothing
but a conscientious devotion to abstract justice would induce me to
touch upon. What law, or what precedent, can be cited to authorize a
woman to appear as an advocate in a court of justice and usurp the
offices and prerogatives of a man? I will not dwell upon the impropriety
of such conduct; but on my honor, as a member of the bar, the behavior
of Portia was outrageous. This young female, not content with
'cavorting' around the country in a loose and perspicuous style,
actually practises a gross swindle on the court. She assumes to be a man
when she is only a woman, dons the breeches when she is only entitled to
the skirts, and imposes herself upon the Duke of Venice as a learned
young advocate from Rome, when in fact she is only a young damsel of
Belmont, with half a dozen lovers on hand, on her own showing. And yet
this young baggage, whose own father would not trust her to choose a
husband, whose brains are addled by her own love affairs, and who had no
more business in court than