In Portia's confession, which is not breathed from a moonlit balcony, but spoken openly in the presence of her attendants and vassals, there is nothing of the passionate self-abandonment of Juliet, nor of the artless simplicity of Miranda, but a consciousness and a tender seriousness, approaching to solemnity, which are not less touching.
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone,
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
More rich; that only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something; which to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd,
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted. But now, I was the lord,
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself,
Are yours, my lord.
We must also remark that the sweetness, the solicitude, the subdued fondness which she afterwards displays, relative to the letter, are as true to the softness of her sex, as the generous self-denial with which she urges the departure of Bassanio, (having first given him a husband's right over herself and all her countless wealth,) is consistent with a reflecting mind, and a spirit at once tender, reasonable, and magnanimous.
It is not only in the trial scene that Portia's acuteness, eloquence, and lively intelligence are revealed to us; they are displayed in the first instance, and kept up consistently to the end. Her reflections, arising from the most usual aspects of nature, and from the commonest incidents of life are in such a poetical spirit, and are at the same time so pointed, so profound, that they have passed into familiar and daily application, with all the force of proverbs.
If to do, were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.
I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season, seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
A substitute shines as brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook,
Into the main of waters.
Her reflections on the friendship between her husband and Antonio are as full of deep meaning as of tenderness; and her portrait of a young coxcomb, in the same scene, is touched with a truth and spirit which show with what a keen observing eye she has looked upon men and things.
——I'll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accouter'd like young men.
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace
And speak, between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride; and speak of frays,
Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies—
How honorable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
I could not do withal: then I'll repent,
And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,
That men should swear, I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth!
And in the description of her various suitors, in the first scene with Nerissa, what infinite power, wit, and vivacity! She half checks herself as she is about to give the reins to her sportive humor: "In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker."—But if it carries her away, if is so perfectly good-natured, so temperately bright, so lady-like, it is ever without offence; and so far, most unlike the satirical, poignant, unsparing wit of Beatrice, "misprising what she looks on." In fact, I can scarce conceive a greater contrast than between the vivacity of Portia and the vivacity of Beatrice. Portia, with all her airy brilliance, is supremely soft and dignified; every thing she says or does, displays her capability for profound thought and feeling, as well as her lively and romantic disposition; and as I have seen in an Italian garden a fountain flinging round its wreaths of showery light, while the many-colored Iris hung brooding above it, in its calm and soul-felt glory; so in Portia the wit is ever kept subordinate to the poetry, and we still feel the tender, the intellectual, and the imaginative part of the character, as superior to, and presiding over its spirit and vivacity.
In the last act, Shylock and his machinations being dismissed from our thoughts, and the rest of the dramatis personæ assembled together at Belmont, all our interest and all our attention are riveted on Portia, and the conclusion leaves the most delightful impression on the fancy. The playful equivoque of the rings, the sportive trick she puts on her husband, and her thorough enjoyment of the jest, which she checks just as it is proceeding beyond the bounds of propriety, show how little she was displeased by the sacrifice of her gift, and are all consistent with her bright and buoyant spirit. In conclusion; when Portia invites her company to enter her palace to refresh themselves after their travels, and talk over "these events at full," the imagination, unwilling to lose sight of the brilliant group, follows them in gay procession from the lovely moonlight garden to marble halls and princely revels, to splendor and festive mirth, to love and happiness.
Many women have possessed many of those qualities which render Portia so delightful. She is in herself a piece of reality, in whose possible existence we have no doubt: and yet a human being, in whom the moral, intellectual, and sentient faculties should be so exquisitely blended and proportioned to each other; and these again, in harmony with all outward aspects and influences probably never existed—certainly could not now exist. A woman constituted like Portia, and placed in this age, and in the actual state of society, would find society armed against her; and instead of being like Portia, a gracious, happy, beloved, and loving creature, would be a victim, immolated in fire to that multitudinous Moloch termed Opinion. With her, the world without would be at war with the world within; in the perpetual strife, either her nature would "be subdued to the element it worked in," and bending to a necessity it could neither escape nor approve, lose at last something of its original brightness; or otherwise—a perpetual spirit of resistance, cherished as a safeguard, might perhaps in the end destroy the equipoise; firmness would become pride and self-assurance; and the soft, sweet, feminine texture of the mind, settle into rigidity. Is