of love, a melancholy worm-heart whose flesh ia really worth nothing save "to bait fish withal." He does not repay the swindled Jew the three thousand ducats. Nor does Bassanio repay him this man is, as an English critic calls him, a real fortune-hunter ; he borrows money to make a display so as to win a rich wife and a fat bridal portion, for as he says to his friend :—
"'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance :
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate ; but my chief care
Is, to come fairly off from the great debts,
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love ;
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburthen all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe."[1]
As for Lorenzo, he is the accomplice of a most infamous theft, and according to the laws of Prussia he would have been branded, set in the pillory, and condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment, notwithstanding his susceptibility to the beauties of nature, landscapes by moonlight, and music. As for the other noble Venetians who appear as allies of Antonio, they do not seem to have
- ↑ Merchant of Venice, acti. sc. 1
