LADY OF BELMONT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 120, 14 February 1929, Page 13

LADY OF BELMONT

Sir,— Henry Fielding, in “A Journey from this World to the Next” (1743) observed Shakespeare standing between Betterton and Booth, and deciding a difference bptween . those two great actors concerning the placing of an accent in one of his lines; and Shakespeare said that “the greatest and most pregnant beauties were ever the plainest and most evidently striking.” The •'Mercy” speech in the “Merchant of Venice” is susceptible of common-sense treatment, when. it becomes plain that the speech is but an elaboration of preceding matter. ' “Do ,you confess the bond?” “I do.” “Then must the Jew be merciful.” Jew: “On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.” The “speech” logically follows. In the. original, the word “mercy” is printed in small letters, implying the negative sense; while the positive word “Justice,” represented by Monarch, Crown, Majesty. King, are all printed in capitals. Five times is “mercy” printed, and always in small letters. Again, if we group “mercy, gentle rain, beneath” (the central words in succeeding lines) we note a subtle "relationship allied to gravitation ; and “droppeth” gives life to the four. Knight’s edition of Shakespeare puts a comma after “droppeth,” thus ranging himself on Miss ? Hunter-Watts’s side when she makes a slight pause. Shakespeare’s punctuation was rhythmical, while the moderns adopt the logical method, and thus mislead to the extent of the difference. The theory of the drama, or the imitation of human life, per medium of dialogue, has puzzled many investigators. Coleridge said that in Shakespeare one sentence begets the next naturally; the meaning is all interwoven. For instance, take this “Mercy” speech—did Portia bring it with her ready for delivery, or was the preceding talk there simply, to lead up to it? Many editors and commentators have tried to improve on Shakespeare, but to dislodge one sentence in the procession is chaos! Poetically speaking, Shakespeare keeps a curiosity shop, studded over with many gems; but if every sentence was a gem, his plays were, then, a mere collection of gems, and nothing more. People discourse in language ready to hand, and only in tense moments do they speak deliberately. In other words, as Macaulay points out, in the plays of man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions which contend for the mastery over him, and govern'him in turn. Like “Malvolio,” I am enjoying the finished pictures presented to the mental camera by the Wilkie Company. Let me conclude by assuring Miss F. HuhterWatts that she awoke to fame on the morning her charmingly-worded letter was published.—l am, etc.,

PAROLLES. Wellington, February 4, 1929.