cottage, or in the cave among the mountains of Wales, or on the seashore in the Bermudas.  The laws that are imposed upon the intricate relations of men in society were a weariness to him; and in this he is thoroughly English.  The Englishman has always been an objector, and he has a right to object, though it may very well be held that he is too fond of larding his objection with the plea of conscience.  But even this has a meaning in our annals; as a mere question of right we are very slow to prefer the claim of the organized opinions of society to the claim of the individual conscience.  We know that there is no good in a man who is doing what he does not will to do.  We are not like our poets or our men of action to be void of inspiration.  A gift is nothing if there is no benevolence in the giver: 

                    For to the noble mind
  Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

We ask for the impulse as well as the deed.  Even when he is speaking of social obligations Shakespeare makes his strongest appeal not to force or command, but to the natural piety of the heart: 

  If ever you have looked on better days,
  If ever been where bells have knolled to church,
  If ever sat at any good man’s feast,
  If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
  And know what ’tis to pity and be pitied,
  Let gentleness my strong enforcement be: 
  In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.

So speaks Orlando when the Duke has met his threats with fair words; and he adds an apology: 

                 Pardon me, I pray you;
  I thought that all things had been savage here,
  And therefore put I on the countenance
  Of stern commandment.

The ultimate law between man and man, according to Shakespeare, is the law of pity.  I suppose that most of us have had our ears so dulled by early familiarity with Portia’s famous speech, which we probably knew by heart long before we were fit to understand it, that the heavenly quality of it, equal to almost anything in the New Testament, is obscured and lost.  There is no remedy but to read it again; to remember that it was conceived in passion; and to notice how the meaning is raised and perfected as line follows line: 

  Portia.  Then must the Jew be merciful.

  Shylock.  On what compulsion must I?  Tell me that.

Portia.  The quality of mercy is not strained.  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath; it is twice bless’d; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:  ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown.  His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself, And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When