Punch (77.1879)

November 15, 1879.] PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 225

A KICK IN TIME.

he wretch who Ladies soiled
with Town Talk's
hreath
His eighteen months of
well-earned quod se-
cures ;

But kick a woman, when
she's down, to death,
And, if she is your wife,
six months' are yours.
Proud privilege of husbands

—without joking —
The Judge thinks that "she
might have been pro-
voking !"

To Our Censor Morum.

Dear Mr. Punch,

The late Lord Mayor
will he equally surprised
and disgusted to know that
a detachment of the Guards
regularly marches past the
Mansion-House about7 p.m.
every night in their Bear-
skins, much to the disgust
and virtuous indignation of the, at that hour, happily diminished
population of the City. A Fkiendlt Ztjitj.

OUR REPRESENTATIVE MAN.

Mr. Irving as Shylock, Miss Ellen Terry's Portia, at the Lyceum.—
Postscript, Imperial, Folly, Gaiety, Adelphi.

There were great expectations about The Merchant of Venice
at the Lyceum, and verilv thev have not been disappointed. Mr.

Irving's Shylock, — the

evident result of c =_ k\l f WA the

Trial Scene, with < = « ^MnV^ a,n^

exception, is a m ter,

" For thy three th = *^^A^* ing

coin in the open =- ^f§\^\ L to

the forcible refuse = w ion
implies, "Look hzr—
device seems unw -

CD

puasise muse jjco ——
them from their -
Charles Kean, E—
and successfully -
made him. "Ma^"
both Mr. Irving, — co
come very, very —
possible to mortal —
I dismiss Mr. 1 -
this remark, that — N
in which I have EE
where he was al=-
more jerky, and in
night, I am bom —
nervousness, whi( -
with Tubal he se=~
Tubal's slip of i— in
scene was quite EE
this had happenei —

— CO

situations, winou —
charm, if they laE c\i

If Mr. Irving -
bling, now stridh -

if at one time he raves and scolds like a virago, and at another is
calm, impassive, and unrelenting as destiny,—I say that this is
Shakspeare's own Shylock, a character all lights and. shades,
evoking laughter by his bitterest irony, punning over a matter of
business, sharp in his retorts, and in his outbursts of passion

" So confused,
So strange, outrageous, and so variable,"

that—

" All the boys in Venice follow him,
Crying—his stones, his daughter, and his ducats."

"We have a Rembrandtesque picture. This is the Jew that Portia
dreio—the raving, maniacal old clothesman, harried and worried by
those yelping gutter curs, the chaffing gamins, the street Arabs of
Venice, the little unwashed of the Canals, who mob him from
street to street, and goad him to frenzy.

But he recovers all his composure for the great Trial Scene, when,
unrepresented by counsel, he is going to conduct his own case, and
have his knife into the Christian Merchant. By the way, Antonio
ought to have been a stout, portly man; for unless he be, Shylock's
" merry jest " in the First Act, on which the whole play hangs, loses
much of its significance. Antonio ought to have a "bit of fat" in
his part. At the Lyceum Mr. Forrester is naturally sad, and
physically far too lean. Mr. Barnes could better have spared a
fatter pound! This by the way.

So potent is Mr. Irving's embodiment in the Trial Scene of that
concentrated hate which Jessica has previously described,—

" I have heard him swear
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh
Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him-"

as to compel our admiration for the dignified bearing which
cloaks his intense malignity. Then as the business of the Court
goes on, and the mean, quibbling surprise is sprung upon the Jew
by Portia, instructed by that Eminent Counsel Bellario—who,
between ourselves, must have been a sly old practical joker, and
utterly unworthy of his position as a Leader of the Venetian Bar—
which transforms the Prosecutor into the Persecuted, Mr. Irving
enlists all our sympathy for the unhappy man, whose hard, relent-
less hatred has left him no loop-hole of escape, and who stands before
us now broken, helpless, hopeless—"A very old man, my Lord—
a very old man "—smitten by the hand of Heaven. There is not
one among the audience but resents Gratiano's " chaff," as the most
ill-timed, cruel, unchristian impertinence to a fallen man, who
would be protected from insult by any Court that cared one straw
for its own dignity. A round of the heartiest applause would, I
verily believe, be evoked from the audience, were the Doge to rise
in magisterial wrath, and commit this Venetian 'Arry, this un-
feeling snob Gratiano, for contempt of Court, as a just punishment
for his indecent interruptions.

Mr. Irving's exit is admirable. Beaten, ruined, vanquished,
he leaves the Court master of the situation. I have seen a
German Shylock crawl to the Duke's feet, and then, after a fit
of inarticulate raving, and idiotic spluttering and plucking at his
beard, removed apparently lifeless. I had feared lest Mr. Irving
should have ventured on this spasmodic finish, which would have
jeopardised the entire performance. But he did not; and of his
final exit as Shylock, it may well be said—

" Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving of it."

Miss Ellen Terry had already shown us what she could do as
Portia at the Prince of Wales's, but her performance there was but
as the sketch of which this at the Lyceum is the perfect picture. It
is high and graceful comedy, from first to last—pure comedy, por-
traying the varying impulses, the vivacity and sparkling wit of a
beautiful woman richly endowed by nature, strong in the power of
her own charms, never attitudinising, ever moving with uncon-
scious grace, fascinating by her rare spontaneity and simplicity.
Portia is instinctively an actress. She jumps at the fun of dis-
guising herself and her maid as barrister and clerk, and takes it for
granted that her cousin Bellario will give his grave countenance
to what seems so like a madcap freak. She literally revels in it,
going through a preliminary rehearsal before Nerissa of the gait,
manner, and voice of the part she is about to play. Yet, after
all this, her disguise in Court, according to Miss Terry's view, is
so transparent, that Bassanio must be the most obtuse per-
son not to discover his wife immediately she appears, or at least
the instant she opens her lips to speak ; for in the next Act even
Lorenzo, occupied as he is with Jessica, recognises Portia at night by
her voice alone. But, neither situations nor characters, in this play,
can be seriously criticised. Given Shakspeare, we_ may well be
satisfied with the goods the Gods provide. The inspired language
and the force of the situations carry the drama triumphantly along.

I hear one blemish charged against Miss Ellen Terry's Portia,
—a lack of dignity in the Trial Scene. But I am not sure that
a sudden assumption of dignity would not appear preposterous

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