Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/661

 606

ranks of the profession in Venice or Padua were not so overcrowded as to make it pos sible for him to be ignorant that a fraud was being played upon him by Portia. The underhand game that was resorted to leads to the inquiry, could the judgment have stood after it had been made to appear that the assessor—the real judge—was incapaci tated, both through her course of action, and by reason of her gender, from discharging the duties of the office? There lurks a sus picion in the writer's mind that the Duke had not been left in the dark with regard to Por tia's designs. How did she learn, in advance, that Bellario was to be his assessor? And could he, any more than Bellario.have been unaware that Portia was not Balthazar? The identity of a practitioner, "the greatness of whose learning," as Bellario's letter says, "I cannot enough commend," and of whom her encomiast adds that he "never knew so young

a body in so old a head," ought not to have been difficult to verify. It rather looks as if the Duke had allowed Portia to name the assessor; and that she fixed upon Bellario as one whom—if not already manipulated by her—she felt satisfied she could bend to her purposes; that, in reality, the Duke knew every detail of the arrangement. But the palpable bias exhibited by the cbaracter of the sentence forms the strong est argument for the belief that he was in her confidence throughout. When An tonio prefers the monstrous request that Shylock should change his faith, in return for the merchant's partial relinquishment of his right to a moiety of his creditor's posses sions, the Duke at once falls in with it, back ing his compliance with the announcement that, unless the Jew does so, "I do recant the pardon that I late pronounced here."

THE EARLY WATCH. THE establishment of those people who are obliged to keep watch in the streets of cities during the night belongs to the oldest regulations of police. Such watchmen are mentioned in the Song of Solomon, and thev occur also in the Book of Psalms. Athens and other cities of Greece had at least sen tinels posted in various parts; and some of the thesmothetœ were obliged to visit them from time to time, in order to keep them to their duty. At Rome there were triumviri nocturni, cohortes vigilum, etc. The object of all these institutions seems to have been rather the prevention of fires than the guarding against nocturnal alarms or danger; though in course of time atten tion was paid to these also. When Augus tus wished to strengthen the night-watch, for the purpose of suppressing nocturnal

commotions, he used as a pretext the ap prehension of fires only. The regulations respecting these watchmen, and the discip line to which they were subjected, were al most the same as those for night-sentinels in camps during the time of war; but it does not appear that the night-watchmen in cities were obliged to prove their presence and vigilance by singing, calling out, or by any other means. Signals were made by the patrols alone, with bells, when the watch men wished to say anything to each other. Singing by sentinels in time of war was cus tomary, at least among some nations; but in all probability that practice was not com mon in the time of peace. Calling out the hours seems to have been first practised after the erection of city gates, and to have taken its rise in Germany;