346 TRAI^SACTIONS OP SECTION L. 



Let us think of Portia as the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Cam- 

 bridge desiring above all things the advancement of learning and of Nerissa 

 as a Proctor whose duty it is, as representing the Senate, the collective body 

 of members of the Colleges, to see that the statutes and ordinances are duly 

 attended to. Listen to the conversation which begins with the exclamation, 

 ' By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world,' a remark 

 with which I feel sure many a Vice-Chancellor has opened many a conversa- 

 tion with many a Proctor. In accordance with the usual practice in dealing 

 with classical literature I have added a few notes. 



Dialogue between Portia (Vice-Chancellor) and Nerissa (Proctor), the 

 representative of the Senate of the University through which the Colleges 

 exercise their control.' 



Portia (V.'C.) — ' By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this 

 great world.' 



Nerissa (Proctor). — ' You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were 

 in the same abundance as your good fortunes are : And yet, for aught I see, 

 they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. 2 

 It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean : superfluity 

 comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.' 

 Portia (V.C). — 'Good sentences and well pronounced.'^ 

 Nerissa (Proctor). — ' They would be better, if well followed.' 

 Portia (V.C). — ' If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, 

 chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a 

 good divine that follows his own instructions : 1 can easier teach twenty 

 what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own 

 teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps 

 o'er a cold decree : such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes 

 of good counsel the cripple.* But this reasoning is not in the fashion to 

 choose me a husband. me, the word "choose!" I may neither choose 

 ■whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike ; so is the will of a living daughter 

 curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot 

 choose one nor refuse none ? ' 



Nerissa (Proctor). — ' Your father was ever virtuous ; and holy men at their 

 death have good inspirations : therefore the lottery, that he hath devised in 

 these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning 

 chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one who 

 shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any 

 of these princely suitors that are already come? ' 



Portia (V.C). — ' I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them 

 I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.' 

 We may omit the description of the suitors as they are none of them to 

 her ta.ste, and pass on to Nerissa's remark. 



Nerissa (Proctor). — ' You need not fear, lady, the having any of these 

 lords : they have acquainted me with their determinations ; which is indeed 

 to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit,* unless you 

 may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition depending on 

 the caskets.' 



Portia (V.C). — ' If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as 



Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will.'' 



As an additional note I should like to suggest that the successful suitor 



Bassanio with his magnificent thoughtlessness is typical of the Public-School 



boy for whom the University always plays a soft air when the caskets are 



in view, but I feel sure my scholastic hearers would detect an anachronism. 



I need hardly say that I should not spend so much time over what may 



' The scene is at Belmont, which is no doubt a poetic name for Market Hill, 

 adorned by the University Church in Cambridge. 



^ The University has always been recognised as very poor. 



' Note the lapse into the sententiousness of the habitual examiner. 



* This is obviously a reference to University life. 



* The older Universities have often been thought to he too exclusive. 



' This is doubtless allusion to the exemplary patience with whicli the 

 University accepts the ' non placet ' of the Senate. 



