Shakespeare's malignant has outlived Mr. Cumberland's benevolent
Jew. In proportion as Shylock has ceased to be a popular bugbear,
'baited with the rabble's curse', he becomes a half favourite with
the philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to think
that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries.
Shylock is A GOOD HATER; 'a. man no less sinned against than
sinning'. If he carries his revenge too far, yet he has strong
grounds for 'the lodged hate he bears Anthonio', which he explains
with equal force of eloquence and reason. He seems the depositary of
the vengeance of his race; and though the long habit of brooding
over daily insults and injuries has crusted over his temper with
inveterate misanthropy, and hardened him against the contempt of
mankind, this adds but little to the triumphant pretensions of his
enemies. There is a strong, quick, and deep sense of justice mixed
up with the gall and bitterness of his resentment. The constant
apprehension of being burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled, and
trampled on, might be supposed to sour the most forbearing nature,
and to take something from that 'milk of human kindness', with which
his persecutors contemplated his indignities. The desire of revenge
is almost inseparable from the sense of wrong; and we can hardly
help sympathizing with the proud spirit, hid beneath his 'Jewish
gaberdine', stung to madness by repeated undeserved provocations,
and labouring to throw off the load of obloquy and oppression heaped
upon him and all his tribe by one desperate act of 'lawful' revenge,
till the ferociousness of the means by which he is to execute his
purpose, and the pertinacity with which he adheres to it, turn us
against him; but even at last, when disappointed of the sanguinary
revenge with which he had glutted his hopes, and exposed to beggary
and contempt by the letter of the law on which he had insisted with
so little remorse, we pity him, and think him hardly dealt with by
his judges.
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