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Cavaliers in silks and satins, with plumed hats and jewelled swords; Crusaders in glittering mail and silver armour. Alsace peasant girls mingled with Carmelite monks and Sicilian nuns. Shakespeare's characters were legion Portias, Cymbelines, Katherines and Shylocks, all laughed and jested together, their identity concealed beneath their black velvet masks.
On June 11, 1777 Portia was acted at the Haymarket by Miss Barsanti, afterward Mrs. The names of Miss Younge, Miss Farren, Miss E. Kemble, Miss Ryder, Mrs. Pope, Miss De Camp, and Miss Murray are in the record of the stage Portias that comes down to 1800. Probably the best of all those Portias was Mrs. Pope. The beautiful Mrs. Glover played Portia in 1809 at the Haymarket theatre. Mrs.
The only Elizabethan drama which really represents the Italy of the Renaissance is the comedy of Shakespeare, of Beaumont and Fletcher, and of Ben Jonson and Massinger: to the Renaissance belong those clear and sunny figures, the Portias, Antonios, Gratianos, Violas, Petruchios, Bellarios, and Almiras; their faces do we see on the canvases of Titian and the frescoes of Raphael; they are the real children of the Italian Renaissance.
Samuel sometimes rose at night to watch the heavens, and he fancied he heard the voices of the "young-eyed cherubins." He dreamed of a world where Jessicas and Portias were to be met, of a world where Jews were as proud as Shylock, as vindictive as Shylock, and, as Shylock, ate the hearts of their enemies for revenge.
The judges would be as pretty as those who assisted in the judgment of Paris, with changed functions; there would be no monotony in the dress, and the Supreme Bench would be one of the most attractive spectacles in Washington. When the judges as well as the advocates are Portias, the law will be an agreeable occupation. This is, however, mere speculation.
Just then there was a smothered giggle outside the door and six lusty voices chanted, "By my troth, our little bodies are a-weary of these hard stairs," in recognition of which pathetic appeal the committee hastily dismissed the subject of Shylock in order to hear what the impatient Portias had to say.
At the Mermaid with Raleigh and with Sidney, and at a thousand unnamed English firesides, he found the living originals for his Prince Hals, his Orlandos, his Antonios, his Portias, his Isabellas.
With Clive the long list begins of the Portias of the stage. She was thirty years old when she played the part with Macklin, and it is probable that she played it with dignity and certain that she played it with sparkling animation and piquant grace.
Are the ladies of to-day happier in their splendid parlours, than the Portias and the Cornelias have been in the homely retirement of their modest nurseries? Nay; all that boundless thirst of wealth, which is the ruling spirit of our age, and the moving power of enterprising energy, all this hunting after treasures, and all its happiest results, have they made men nobler, better, and happier?
"I thought he wasn't coming until to-morrow," said Teddie Wilson, who followed every move of the play committee with mournful interest. "He wasn't," explained Barbara Gordon, "but he found he could get off better to-day. It's only for the Shylocks and Portias, you know. We can't do much until they're definitely decided, so we can tell who is left for the other parts."
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