THE ANATOMY OF AX OLD ANECDOTE. 369 



integrity of full nervous susceptibility. And- probably tbcre was 

 never a time when there were so many persons as now who are dis- 

 posed, by conviction and by a desire for a stalwart physical independ- 

 ence, to refuse to fix any habit that holds the nervous system; 



But, taking the world and its discomforts as we find them, it must 

 be granted that the thralldom of tea is comparative physical freedom, 

 and we can gladly give voice to those who praise these comfortable 

 beverages. " Near the fire," says De Quincey, " paint me a tea-table 

 place only two cups and saucers upon it and beside them paint me 

 an eternal tea-pot. . . . For tea," he says, " will always be the favorite 

 beverage of the intellectual, and for my part I would have joined Dr. 

 Johnson against any impious person who should presume to dispar- 

 age it." 



THE ANATOMY OF AN OLD ANECDOTE. 



By WILLIAM W. BILLSON. 



IT is a matter of common knowledge that Shakespeare's story of the 

 bond for a pound of flesh is not of his own invention, but is 

 merely a modern and dramatic version of a very old tale which, with 

 slight but frequently significant variations in form, had already become 

 the common property of many nations, East and West. 



Even though these legendary antecedents of the drama had never 

 been actually discovered, their existence could nevertheless with great 

 confidence be affirmed ; for in no other manner can we account for 

 the singular and unconscious fidelity with which the anecdote illus- 

 trates legal conceptions highly characteristic of primitive ages, but 

 alien to that in which Shakeqieare lived. 



The scientific value of a good story as a clew to the institutions, 

 the intellectual and social life of the people among whom it originated, 

 or in whose hands it has undergone modification, is now so well under- 

 stood that to collect, anatomize, and interpret recently despised folk- 

 lore, romances, anecdotes, and ballads, is a recognized function of 

 modern scholarship. 



The story of the bond is not only one of great inherent interest 

 and scientific value it is rendered doubly attractive as an object of 

 study by the fact that a correct apprehension of its original meaning 

 constitutes an excellent preparation if not an indispensable condition 

 to a sound analysis of Shakespeare's play ; to a discovery of the mo- 

 tives through which, as poet and playwright, he was led to select the 

 story for the purposes of his art, and to a correct understanding of 

 the many passages by which with admirable skill he sought to conceal 

 or evade the annoying discrepancy between the ideas out of which, in 

 the barren soil of a very remote antiquity, the story originally grew, 

 vol. xx. 24 



