ISAAC AND SHYLOCK.
327
ually Shylock is far superior. He is a man possessing a vast store of general information, while Isaac knows nothing beyond the ken of money getting. Shylock was not only able to keep himself out of the grip of the law but could turn it upon others. Isaac could meet no emergencies. In this they are alike, that they both cringed before the moneyed aristocracy, but looked stern and terrible in the presence of a bankrupt debtor. Isaac shows a very great love for his daughter, which is wholly wanting in the case of Shylock. When Jessica ran off with Lorenzo, Shylock was more grieved over the loss of his ducats and diamonds than his daughter, but when Rebecca was carried away captive by Bois-Guilbert, Isaac prostrated himself in the dust, exclaiming, "Child of my sorrow, well shouldst thou be called Benoni instead of Rebecca; why should thy death bring down my gray hairs to the grave, till, in the bitterness of my heart, I curse God and die?"
Isaac was a coward in the presence of bodily danger. When informed that the Templar meditated evil against him he struck dumb with terror and was only saved by the kindly assistance of the Knight of Ivanhoe.
When the tables were turned against Shylock in the trial, something shows itself in his nature that we almost admire. All through the trial scene the reader can almost see Shylock whetting his knife and see it gleam as he turns it from side to side. All the time he is busy preparing for the inhuman deed. Nothing could move him, not even the almost divine pleadings of Portia. He is inexorable, he insists on the letter of the law. "My deeds be upon my head! I crave the law!" But in straining the law he brought about his own destruction. He saw his mistake and began to retreat, but soon be can go no further. When both he and his property are in the hands of the enemy, then the pathos of his nature asserts itself and he gives expression to the following: "Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that, you take my house when you take the prop that doth sustain my house; you take my life when you take the means whereby I live." With Isaac, when he was brought face to face with apparent death, it was itself different. He did nothing but beg quarter and swear that he was penniless. Shylock is much the stronger, while Isaac is the more humane.
Isaac did put in a plea for the wounded Ivanhoe, who saved his life, but when he found his plea must be backed by moneys it died upon his lips. Isaac possessed nothing that would ever have rendered him other than a Jew. Shylock, on the other hand, was capable of something better had he not been the destined victim of unfortunate circumstances. J.E.C.
EPIGRAM.
PLATO.
Dost scan thy twinkling kin, my star?
Oh! would the joyful right were mine
To be the azure vanlt afar,
With countless eyes on thee to shine.
F. A. M.