T/ie Law and Procedure in "T/¿e Merchant of Venice" This will be observed to be a much handsomer benefaction than the Shylockian penalty; but there is no means, of course, of telling whether the account records a genuine trans action. Presently, coming a suppliant to the judge for her lover, she is reminded by him that it is law of the Emperor "that whosoever bindcth him with his own proper will and con sent, without any constraining, he should be served so again." It would seem to be going pretty far to interpret such a proposition as upholding the theory that a man, as the foundation of a contract between them, may consent to his own death at the hands of another. It is one thing to affirm that a person may, by some voluntary act, relieve a fellow-being of crim inality, in the matter of injury to fall upon himself, and another to maintain a civil court to be open to him, where he might enforce his right against the person licensing him to do the injury. Portia, indeed, by the judgment she delivers towards the end of the trial-scene, makes it clear that Shvlock, on this very ground, never had any status as a litigant proceeding under his bond. She lays it down that "if it be proved against an alien that by direct or indirect attempts he seek the life of any citizen, the party against which he doth contrive shall seize one-half his goods, the other half comes to the privy coffers of the State, and the offender's life lies in the mercy of the Duke onlv, 'gainst all other voice; in which predicament, I say, thou stand'st; for it appears by manifold pro ceeding that indirectly, and directly, too, than hast contrived against the rer life of the defendant." All must concede the necessity, by way of anti-climax, for a dramatic, irrev ocable turning of the tables upon Shylock; and this the playwright may not have been able, by any less radical method, to achieve. The writer leaves this branch of the specu lation by tendering his opinion that the bar rier to enforcement of the forfeiture inter
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posed at an early stage of the trial by Portia was the sheerest puerility. Had Shylock possessed a remedy at law, the mere incident of the shedding of blood, in pressing it, would have been treated as я condition, of necessity, before the minds of the contracting parties when the bargain was made. More than this, Portia is found to remark "this bond doth give thee here no jot of blood." Would not the true doctrine be, that, in the absence of words in the instru ment prohibiting the drawing of blood, such inevitable consequence of a knife's dividing the flesh must be read into it? The next element is the jurisdiction. Passing over the point that he united in his own person executive and judicial functions —a thing sanctioned, perhaps, by the period, but which has not been illustrated among civilized nations for many centuries—the judgment, surely, could have been avoided on the ground that the Duke, even though the fact may have been unknown -to him, was guided by a partial assessor. Portia, wife of the man for whom Antonio became surety —a circumstance enough in itself to have disqualified her—goes over the matter privily with Bellario—her cousin, as we are told in the play—who had not only been apprized of her intimate concern with the business, but agreed, moreover, to be a party to the de ception—if there was deception—practised on the Duke by accrediting a woman as his substitute. In the letter which Portia dis patches to the learned Doctor, she begs him, as the instructions given to her servant re veal, to vouchsafe her both his mental and sartorial furniture; "and look what notes and garments he doth give thee bring them, I pray thee, with imagm'd speed, unto the trancet, to the common ferry which trades to Venice." He could not, in any event, have doubted that he was not treating with a member of the bar, or even one of his own sex. The
