He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted.
Salanio. I think, he only loves the world for him."[389:A]
Nor do the female personages of the drama contribute less to this grateful effect: the sensible, the spirited, the eloquent Portia, who has a principal share in the business of both plots, is equally distinguished for the tenderness of her disposition and the goodness of her heart, and her pleadings for mercy in behalf of the injured Antonio will dwell on the ear of pity and admiration to the last syllable of recorded time.
With a similar result do we enter into the character of Jessica, whose artlessness, simplicity, and affectionate temper, excite, in an uncommon degree, the interest of the reader. The opening of the fifth act, where Lorenzo and Jessica are represented conversing on a summer's night, in the avenue at Belmont, and listening with rapture to the sounds of music, produces, occurring as it does immediately after the soul-harrowing scene in the court of justice, the most enchanting emotion; it breathes, indeed, a repose so soft and delicious, that the mind seems dissolving in tranquil luxury:
"How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of musick
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony."[390:A]
Shakspeare was an enthusiast in music in a musical age; and though his subsequent encomium upon it be somewhat extravagant, and his reprobation of the man who "is not moved with concord of sweet sounds," undeservedly harsh and severe, yet are they both more applicable and judicious than the flippant and undiscriminating censure of Mr. Steevens, whose note on the subject has met with its due castigation from the pen of Mr. Douce, who, after stigmatising the commentator's disingenuous effort to throw an odium on this recreation, in conjunction with the feeble aid of an illiberal passage from Lord Chesterfield's Letters, justly and beautifully adds, that "It is a science which, from its intimate and natural connexion with
poetry and painting, deserves the highest attention and respect. He that is happily qualified to appreciate the better parts of music, will never seek them in the society so emphatically reprobated by the noble lord, nor altogether in the way he recommends. He will not lend an ear to the vulgarity and tumultuous roar of the tavern catch, or the delusive sounds of martial clangour; but he will enjoy this heavenly gift, this exquisite and soul-delighting sensation, in the temples of his God, or in the peaceful circles of domestic happiness: he will pursue the blessings and advantages of it with ardour, and turn aside from its abuses."[391:A]