JEWISH CHARACTERS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
ENGLISH FICTION AND DRAMA
H. R. S. VAN DER VEEN















JEWISH CHARACTERS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
ENGLISH FICTION AND DRAMA
"On souffre aisément des répréhensions, mais on ne souffre point de raillerie. On veut bien être méchant, mais on ne veut point être ridicule."
Molière.











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JEWISH CHARACTERS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
ENGLISH FICTION AND DRAMA
PROEFSCHRIFT TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE AAN DE RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT TE GRONINGEN, OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR MAGNIFICUS DR. G. VAN DER LEEUW, HOOGLEERAAR IN DE FACULTEIT DER GODGELEERDHEID, IN HET OPENBAAR TE VERDEDIGEN OP ZATERDAG 6 JULI 1935 DES AVONDS OM NEGEN UUR
DOOR
HARM REIJNDERD SIENTJO VAN DER VEEN
geboren te groningen
BIJ J. B. WOLTERS' UITGEVERS-MAATSCHAPPIJ n.v. GRONINGEN — BATAVIA — 1935



BOEKDRUKKERIJ VAN J. B. WOLTERS



AAN DE NAGEDACHTENIS VAN MIJN MOEDER AAN MIJN VADER AAN MIJN VROUW







Bij de beëindiging mijner universitaire studie betuig ik mijn dank aan de hoogleraren en lectoren, wier onderwijs ik heb mogen volgen, de Heren Prof. Dr. P. N. U. Harting, Prof. Dr. J. M. N. Kapteyn, J. A. Falconer, M. A., en E. A. Boulan, in het bijzonder aan Professor Harting, onder wiens leiding ik mijn dissertatie heb bewerkt. Ook het onderwijs van nu wijlen de Heren Prof. Dr. J. H. Kern en Prof. Dr. B. Sijmons blijft bij mij in dankbare herinnering. Voor de welwillende wijze, waarop de Heren Prof. Dr. L. H. K. Bleeker, Prof. Dr. Joh. de Groot, Prof. Dr. P. J. Enk en J. F. Pastor mij zijn tegemoetgetreden, ben ik zeer erkentelijk.
Tevens spreek ik bij deze gelegenheid mijn dank uit aan allen, die mij inlichtingen hebben verstrekt of nuttige wenken hebben gegeven.
Ten zeerste waardeer ik ook de grote hulpvaardigheid mij betoond door de beambten van de Universiteitsbibliotheek te Groningen, de Koninklijke Bibliotheek te 's Gravenhage en de Library of the British Museum te London.



CONTENTS
Page
Introduction 9
PART I
The Prose-writers and the Jews
Chap. I. The Early Eighteenth Century Prose-writers 19
„ II. Tobias Smollett 37
III. Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Fanny Burney,
and the Late Eighteenth Century Essayists 51
„ IV. Cumberland and the Humanitarian Movement 65
PART II The Dramatists and the Jews
Chap. V. Love Triumphant 83
„ VI. The Jew of Venice 95
„ VII. Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress and its Influence 103
„ VIII. The Jerusalem Infirmary 123
,, IX. Charles Macklin and his Love a la Mode . . 133
„ X. Foote's Social Satires 147
„ XI. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 160
„ XII. Andrews and O'Keeffe 179
„ XIII. Some Unpublished Plays 195
„ XIV. Cumberland's Jew Plays 219
,, XV. Morton's Zorinski and Franklin's The Wan-
dering Jew 241
„ XVI. Further Signs of the Humanitarian Movement
in Drama 249
Conclusion 264
Appendix: The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob . . . 270
Bibliography 291
General Index 295



INTRODUCTION
The aim of the present treatise is to investigate Jewish characters in eighteenth century English fiction and drama. We have chosen this period, because it has not yet been treated adequately. The Jew in early English literature*) and the Elizabethan Jew2) have already been properly considered, but no attempt has hitherto been made to do full justice to the peculiar origin, the rapid development and the remarkable influence of Jewish figures in eighteenth century literature. As for the Jewish characters and the references to Israelites in the fiction of the period just mentioned, they have, to the best of my knowledge, almost entirely been ignored by criticism. A little more attention has been paid to the drama. The following is probably a fairly complete list of the works and articles dealing with the subject in hand:
T. F. Dillon Croker, The Stage Israelite, in The Era Almanac for 1881, pp. 70—72. (Only a few titles of eighteenth century plays are mentioned in this article).
D. Philipson, The Jew in English Fiction, Cincinnati, 1889.
(Of the eighteenth century novels, essays and dramas only Cumberland's The Jew is treated here).
I. Abrahams, Jews and the Theatre, in The Jewish Chronicle, Jubilee Supplement, London, 1891, pp. 21—23. C. B. Mabon, The Jew in English Poetry and Drama, in The Jewish Quarterly Review, XI, London, 1899, pp. 411—430.
E. N. Calisch, The Jew in English Literature, as author and as
subject, Richmond, 1909.
W. Meyer, Der Wandel des jüdischen Typus in der englischen Literatur, Marburg, 1912.
(The last four works each devote two or three pages at most to eighteenth century drama, in
*) H. Michelson, The Jew in Early English Literature, Amsterdam, 1926. 2) J. L. Cardozo, The Contemporary Jew in Elizabethan Drama, Amsterdam, 1925-



which very few plays — mostly the same — are either briefly discussed or dismissed with a cursory mention).
M. J. Landa, The Jew in Drama, London, 1926.
(This book, which deals with the whole of English and part of Continental drama, examines only a limited number of eighteenth century Jew plays. The greater part of the available material has been overlooked, however, and the humanitarian movement in connection with the Jew in drama has been ignored entirely. Neither has an attempt been made to point out the influence of one playwright upon another, nor do we find many things explained which ought to have been accounted for in a work like this. We need not be greatly surprised at these imperfections, for, however many good qualities Mr. Landa's treatise may possess, an essay of the scope of his book must necessarily lead to incompleteness and superficiality on some points, and run the risk of degenerating here and there into a mere catalogue).
Our discovery of a considerable amount of new material, and the great interest taken in the drama of the eighteenth century in the last twenty years — we need only remind the reader of the studies of Nicoll, Belden, Williams, Kidson and Schultz in this connection — are also circumstances that led us to the choice of the subject in hand.
In Part I of the present treatise we propose to deal with the attitude of the eighteenth century prose-writer towards the Jews. All the leading novelists and essayists of this period will pass in review here, as every writer of fiction of those days mentions the Jew or creates a Jewish character.
Part II will treat of the eighteenth century stage Jew. It has often been remarked that the period under consideration was a time of decay and of imitation. This may not be true in general, it can certainly be said of the drama, which showed no tracé of originality and was extremely deficient in real character delineation. There is also much that is artificial in it.



This is apparent from the remarkable development of conventional figures like the stage Beau, the stage Irishman, the stage Nabob, the stage Quaker, the ridiculous stage Jew, etc. As it was especially minor dramatists who produced Jewish characters, a number of these half forgotten authors will be considered in the second part of our essay. When tracing the development of the eighteenth century stage Jew we shall endeavour to find out with what qualities and faults the contemporary playwright endowed him, and to account for them, if possible. We shall also pay attention to his names, and attempt to point out what one dramatist borrowed from another. The history of the English Jews will not be lost sight of either, for it is impossible to gain an insight into several matters connected with the stage Jew without some knowledge of the vicissitudes of the Israelites in England.
I did not think it necessary to adhere strictly to the dates 1700 and 1800, at least not as far as the drama is concerned. The first play dealt with in this treatise was performed in 1693. When looking for a starting-point, I found that I could choose between 1693, the year in which Dryden's Love Triumphant was produced, and 1701, when Granville published The Jew of Venice. The choice was not a difficult one. As Love Triumphant is, as far as I have been able to discover, the only Jew play written in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and as the Israelite who figures in it, is entirely different from the stage Jew of pre-Restoration times, and resembles the eighteenth century stage Jew, there was every reason for us to start with the year 1693. Neither did we hesitate to discuss one or two plays which appeared between 1800 and 1810, and which breathe the same spirit as some dating from the last decades of the preceding century. It is perhaps not superfluous to remark that we do not pretend to mention everything that was written about the Jews in eighteenth century literature, although great care has been taken to gather as much material as was possible.
x) With the exception of The Jew's Tragedy, produced by William Hennings in 1662, and The Destruction of Jerusalem, written by John Crowne in 1667. As the theme of both plays is the fall of Jerusalem, and consequently no contemporary Jews occur in it, they will not come up for discussion here.



The Appendix contains The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob, a play that has hitherto been ascribed to Smollett, and which has long been supposed to have got lost. As late as 1926 Landa wrote in connection with this drama: "Beyond the statement that it was believed to hold up to ridicule a certain person who had been caricatured in the prints as an insect, nothing has survived concerning this mysterious play let." *) Fortunately it is still extant in manuscript form in the Huntington Library at San Marino. In the present treatise it has been printed and discussed for the first time.
Bef ore tackling my subject proper, I think it expedient to give a very brief outline of the history of the Jews in England. Further particulars, especially with reference to the eighteenth century, are given in the various chapters whenever the subject required it.
Until recent times — the middle of the nineteenth century — the position of the Jews in England, as in so many other countries, was not a very enviable one. "It is a sad tale," says Abbott, "and of ten told, but sufficiently important to bear telling again." 2)
It is a well known fact that many Jews crossed over to England in 1066 with William the Conqueror 3). There may have been Jews in this country prior to that date, but it is doubtful whether any permanent settlement took place before 1066. Green tells us that William permitted Jewish traders to establish themselves in separate quarters, called Jewries, of the chief towns of England; they had no rights or citizenship, and their lives and goods were absolutely at the King's mercy, but they were protected against the popular hatred in the free exercise of their religion, and were allowed to erect synagogues. 4) William had brought the Jews with him on account of the money they could lend him. Their loans soon gave an impulse to trade, industry, and architecture, and they themselves opened a way for the revival of physical science through their connect-
Landa, op. cit., p. 122.
2) F. G. Abbott, Israël in Europe, London, 1907, p. XIV.
3) J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People, I. p. 80 (Everyman).
4) ibid., p. 80.



for him and his bride. Josuah also succeeds in persuading a certain merchant to give his consent to the marriage between the latter's daughter, Charlotte, and Valentine, a penniless but talented young man, and advises the father to give his daughter a dowry of ten thousand pounds.
Like some other characters in Count Fathom the Jew is very sentimental. When Don Diego finds his daughter again and Melvil his beloved, Manasseh cannot conceal his emotion. On that occasion "the drops of true benevolence flowed from his eyes, like the oil on Aaron's beard." x)
Smollett's noble Jew is said 2) to be the prototype of Cumberland's Sheva in The Jew (1794). We propose to deal with this matter in another chapter. It is remarkable that more than forty years had to elapse before the benevolent Jew made his appearance on the stage. 3) This fact is perhaps not so difficult to account for. The time was not yet ripe for the favourable reception of such a figure. The wave of humanitarianism that was to sweep over Europe in the last decades of the eighteenth century had not yet made itself feit. Smollett's stray voice was therefore doomed to be drowned in the atmosphere of prejudice and intolerance which surrounded him, and which he himself had helped to perpetuate by his former unkind attitude towards the Jews. The fact that Count Fathom depicts a benevolent Jew may have been one of the reasons why this novel was not so very popular. The exaggerated picture which the author gives of Manasseh's munificence and generosity perhaps did not appeal to the people, and may have struck them as being improbable and even ludicrous, after the time-honoured portrait of the avaricious Jew. Indeed, when we compare Isaac Rapine and the Jew in Peregrine Pickle with Joshua Manasseh we cannot but observe that
1) Count Fathom, ch. LXIV.
2) Sir Walter Scott, The Lives of the Novelists, p. 84 (Everyman edition).
3) It is perhaps still more remarkable that more than sixty years had to pass before the benevolent Jew appeared in fiction again: Mr. Montenero, the sympathetic Jew in Miss Edgeworth's Harrington (1817). Many years later Dickens, in his Mutual Friend (1864), likewise introduced a benevolent Jew, Riah, who is also said to be a literary descendant of Joshua Manasseh By this creation Dickens probably made amends for his portrayal of Fagir. in Oliver Twist (Philipson, op. cit. p. 95).



member of the Harmonical Society. We also read of a more fashionable club where one of the guests tells another "a long story of Moravia the Jew." In the second essay the Indigent Philosopher, who is endeavouring to persuade his club to declare war against Spain, exclaims: "What is the rising or the falling of the stocks to us, who have no money? Let Nathan Ben Funk, the Dutch Jew, be glad or sorry for this." No. VI tells of a poor strolling player, a native of Cornwall, who declares, "we have fortunes wherever we go. If an inundation sweeps away half the grounds of Cornwall, I am content — I have no lands there; if the stocks sink, that gives me no uneasiness — I am no Jew." In No. X, the subject of which is a humorous plea for female warriors x) mention is made of that "venerable, unshaken, and neglected patriot, Mr. Jacob Henriquez, who, though of the Hebrew nation, hath exhibited a shining example of Christian fortitude and perseverance." An advertisement, in which Henriquez gave the public to understand that "Heaven had indulged him with seven blessed daughters," had supplied Goldsmith with a hint to advocate the use of female soldiers.
In The Citizen of the World (1760—1762) Goldsmith discusses, among other things, matrimony in China, and observes in this
connection, " in those countries where marriage is most
free, the inhabitants are found every age to improve in stature and in beauty; on the contrary, where it is confined to a caste, a tribe, or an horde, as among the Gaours, the Jews, or the Tartars, each division soon assumes a family likeness, and every tribe degenerates into peculiar deformity." 2)
In The Bee (1759), another collection of essays, the Jews of Alexandria are called "its most industrious inhabitants." s)
Goldsmith also wrote The Captivity, an Oratorio 4) (1764), in which he sings of the misery of the Jews in Babyion and the redress of their wrongs by Cyrus after the fall of the town. In this poem, which contains many beautiful lines, the poet expresses his sympathy with the tragedy of Israël in a
x) In 1762 England was at war with Spain.
2) The Citizen of the World, letter LXXII.
3) No. 3, The History of Hypatia. (The Works of Goldsmith, op. cit., p. 372).
4) The Works of Goldsmith, op. cit., p. 599.



of Shylock, and I shall henceforth call you Jessica; because you, an overgrown rich Jew, can give me an entertainment of a hundred dishes, do you expect the like from such a poor, forked, unbelieving Christian, as I am?" She was a little angry with him, because he wrote so seldom, whereas she sent him letter after letter. Mr. Crisp reverts to the same subject in another epistle x) penned on July 18, I774: "But, says Fanny, if you don't answer, I won't write — now there is something of the Jew in that speech." Remarks like the above were probably not promotive of a tolerant attitude towards the Jews. Our reference to literary influence also requires some comment. When Fanny Burney wrote her Cecilia (1782), the Jewish money-lender had already been a regular stage character for a quarter of a century. This subject will be discussed more fully in the chapters treating of the drama.
The late eighteenth century essayists on the whole entertain very hostile feelings towards the Jews. This is especially the case in and about 1753 and 1754, the time of the naturalization controversy. The great historian and philosopher Lecky, when writing about the above-mentioned years, says: "England was thrown into paroxyms of excitement scarcely less intense than those which followed the impeachment of Sacheverell. There is no page in the history of the eighteenth century that shows more decisively how low was the intellectual and spiritual condition of English public opinion." 2)
In The Rambler of Febr. 11, 1752 3), the well-known Samuel Johnson (1709—1784) ridicules a certain Rabbi, called Abraham Ben Hannase, who in his treatise on precious stones had recommended the "calamita" as a means to find out whether a woman was faithful to her husband or not. The person as well as the name of this Rabbi are evidently fictitious. The Idler of June 17, 17584), also contains a Jewish reference.
1) The Early Diary, op. cit., p. 320.
2) W. E. H. Lecky, The History of England in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1878, vol. I, p. 264.
8) The British Essayists, XXII, p. 200.
«) ibid., XXXIII, p. 37.



seeming slight to the fact that his name is a pentateuch x) name, which in those "suspicious and doubtful times savoured too strongly of Judaism," to which, he assures us, he has not the least tendency. He concurs with a certain lady who asserted that she had "the utmost horror for those sanguinary rites and ceremonies." In a subsequent number 2) he makes Colonel Culverin, one of the members of a Drinking Club, exclaim: "What a d—d rout they made about the repeal of the Jewbill, for which nobody cared one farthing."
Richard Cambridge (1717—1802) contributed a paper to The World on Dec. 13, 1753, in which he says, after mentioning various reasons for coming to London: ". ask whom you will what he is come up for, he draws up all his muscles into a most devout gravity, and with an important solemnity answers you 'To repeal the Jew-bill!'" 3)
Among the eighteenth century essayists there are none who display so much contempt and hatred of the Jews as the joint editors of The Connoisseur, Colman and Thornton. In the first chapter we already quoted some remarks of theirs in connection with the expression: Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics. In the second number 4) of the periodical just mentioned allusion is made to a picture called The Triumph of Gideon, which "an eminent Jew" would have hung up in St. Stephen's Chapel as a memorial of their victory over the Uncircumcised, "if a late project in favour of his brethren had not miscarried." The project in question is of course the Jew bill, and the inscription of the painting, under the show of the well-known Israelitish hero of antiquity5) refers to Sampson Gideon, one of the principal champions of Jewish emancipation of those days. The "eminent Jew" deerns the picture representing "The Prophet of Nazareth himself, conjuring the Devil into a herd of swine", very suitable for all Jewish families, "as a necessary preservative against pork and Christianity." In the
!) The name Philip, to which the Earl evidently refers, is no pentateuch name at all; it only occurs in the New Testament.
2) No. 91, Sept. 26, 1754 (The British Essayists, XXVII, p. 208).
3) The British Essayists, XXVI, p. 269.
') ibid., XXX, p. 10 (Febr. 7, 1754).
5) Gideon, one of the judges of the Old Testament, defeated the Midianites with a small band of followers (Judges VII).



same essay mention is made of "an infamous portrait, by an English hand, called Shylock."
In number twelve, dating April 18, 1754*), Colman and Thornton describe a trial in the Old Bailey of several animals, the first prisoner that was brought in being a hog that had been accused by the Jews of having broken into their synagogue. The following essay, written by the same authors, again touches upon the subject of hogs in order to ridicule the Jews. In a subsequent number 2) they teil of some strolling players who hire an old synagogue deserted by the Jews, which they inaugurate with the performance of The Merchant of Venice. Another article — a libel on the Robin Hood Society — gives an account of some of the former members, who are all of them introduced to us as most eccentric persons. One of these is called Aaron ben Saddai, who had been converted from Judaism by the arguments put forward against Moses and the Patriarchs. 3) The number of Nov. 6, 1755 4), contains an insipid reference to the well-known rabbi Aaron Hart (1670—1756). We are informed that Mr. Jones got ten thousand pounds in a lottery, and that this fortunate man was so deficient in politeness that he did not even know to make a bow in coming into a room, and therefore took private lessons with Mr. Aaron Hart, who taught grown-up gentlemen to dance. On Dec. 11, 1755 6) Colman and Thornton, in an essay on hangers-on, make mention of a dishonest butler at Newington, "several of whose tricks and larcenies were ascribed to the itinerant Jews and higglers", who frequently called at the door. A fortnight later6) the authors relate the story of a lazy valet who succeeded in ingratiating himself with "a rich old curmudgeon, a city merchant, one of the circumcised." He gets enamoured of the Jew's daughter, makes her a Christian and secretly marries her. The young lady does not inherit anything, however, because she appears to be only a bastard. This episode was evidently borrowed from Smollett's Peregrine Pickle (1751), in
*) The British Essayists, XXX, p. 61.
2) ibid., XXX, p. 123.
8) ibid., XXX, p. 187.
*) ibid., XXXI, p. 245.
b) ibid., XXXII, p. 22.
6) ibid., XXXII, p. 34.



which, as we saw in a preceding section, the apprentice of an opulent old Jew also elopes with the latter'sdaughter, afterhaving converted her to Christianity and having made her his wife. x)
Another essay, dating from July 29, 1756 2), contains another attempt of Messrs. Colman and Thornton's to be witty at the expense of the Jews. They propose that every parish shall get a new burial-ground with inscriptions mentioning the most brilliant actions of the dead persons. Several specimens are given, among which the foliowing nonsense: "Here lies Isaac Da Costa, a convert from Judaism, aged 64. He was born and christened in his sixty-first year, and died in the true faith in the third year of his age." This apparently applies to a distinguished member of the Da Costa family, which had left Portugal in the middle of the seventeenth century and had settled in England. 3) In 1759 Solomon Da Costa, another member of this family, presented the British Museum with about two hundred Hebrew manuscripts.4) The list of Colman and Thornton's references to the Jews will only be complete when we have mentioned that in The Connoisseur of Sept. 2, 17565), an alderman is described, who "is the most knowing man upon 'Change, and who understands the rise and fall of stocks better than any Jew."
In The Connoisseur there is also an article 6) by the Earl of Cork, containing a letter from Moses Orthodox, who proposes to lay taxes on heathen gods and goddesses with which the gardens of noblemen, citizens and parsons were decorated. The Mirror of May 15, 1779 '), tells us that Mr. Umphraville — a character delineated in several numbers of this periodical — was once so badly tempered that he was almost able to call "his banker a Jew, his lawyer not a gentleman, and his agent a pettifogger."
We shall provisionally take leave of this catalogue of unfriendly words addressed to the Jews, and devote some attention to another essayist, who saw this people with quite different eyes.
1) Peregrine Pickle, ch. LXXIX.
2) The British Essayists, XXXII, p. 198.
3) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 217.
4) Margoliouth, op. cit., II, p. 106.
6) The British Essayists, XXXII, p. 221.
•) ibid., XXXII, p. 105.
') ibid., XXXIV, p. 168.



CHAPTER IV
CUMBERLAND AND THE HUMANITARIAN MOVEMENT
With regard to the Jews, Richard Cumberland held views quite different from those of the other essayists. In his early plays his feelings towards them were pretty much the same as those of his predecessors and of his contemporaries, but in his prose writings and in his later dramas, he evinced an interest in the Jewish people which contrasts favourably with that displayed by most of his colleagues. In this chapter we propose to expound Cumberland's views respecting the Jews as revealed in his essays; in another section his attitude towards this people in his plays will be discussed. Bef ore reviewing the author's prose writings, a few biographical details concerning this champion of the Jewish cause, to whom as a rule scant attention is paid in the works dealing with English literature, should be given here.
Born in 1732 of a family that had already produced a number of scholars, a long life was allotted to him: he died in his eightieth year. He was originally intended for the church, but, being attracted to the theatre from an early age, he accepted, on leaving the University, an inferior post at the Board of Trade, and devoted his leisure, which seems to have been considerable, to writing. In 1775 he became secretary to the Board of Trade and, five years later, he was sent on a secret mission to Spain. He wrote more than fifty plays, a large number of essays, and several novels and poems, all of which are unremembered now, except by the student of eighteenth century life and manners. The literary celebrities of the day were his friends and acquaintances. He was an amiable man of a true Christian spirit; his sensitiveness to criticism, his irritability and his vanity seem to have been his greatest foibles.
In The Observer, an interesting collection of essays, the first part of which he published early in the year 1785, he champions the Jews openly, and devotes many pages to them. In
5



No. XV 1), which descrihes the burning of a Jew at Madrid by the Inquisition, he remarks: "He was a Jew who suffered, they were Christians who tormented." In another place he writes: "These poor people seem the butt, at which all sects and persuasions level their contempt .... I do not know any good reason why these unhappy wanderers are so treated." 2) Cumberland is also the creator of two Jewish characters: Abraham Abrahams3) and Nicolas Pedrosa4). They differ greatly from the conventional figures dissected in the foregoing chapters. Both were Spaniards, who outwardly conformed to the established religion in Spain, but were Jews in secret.
The following facts concerning Cumberland's first Jewish prose-figure deserve to be mentioned here. At the moment when he is to be initiated into Judaism in a private chapel, his father suddenly dies by a stroke. A monk, who enters at the noise, speaks so disparagingly of the young man's father — he calls him a vile wretch, an unholy villain and a circumcised infidel — that the young Israelite stabs the monk. He succeeds in escaping to England, which he calls the land of freedom and toleration. Here he assumes the name of Abrahams. In a letter addressed to the editor of The Observer ®) he complains of the treatment he has to undergo when he attends a performance in a theatre, and of his being roughly used by an English sailor whose liberty he had bought at Algiers with his own money. Mr. Abrahams also observes that the great writers of plays delight in holding the Jews up to public ridicule and contempt; if they are in search of a rogue, a usurer or a buffoon, they are sure to make a Jew play this part. In a postcript to the same letter, which Cumberland himself had written of course, Mr. Abrahams requests the editor to persuade one of the dramatists "to give us poor Jews a kind lift in a new comedy." Cumberland advises him to ask his persecutor the following questions: "Has not a Jew eyes? 6) Has not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
*) The British Essayists, XXXVIII, p. 98.
2) ibid., XXXVIII, p. 250.
s) ibid., XXXVIII, Nos. 38 and 41—46.
*) ibid., XXXIX, Nos. 88—90.
6) ibid., XXXVIII, p. 252.
6) Cumberland quotes here from The Merchant of Venice (Act. III, sc. 1).



passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter, as a Christian is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you tickle them, do they not laugh? If you poison them, do they not die?" If the man then persists in persecuting an unoffending being, because he is a Jew, he "has the soul of an inquisitor." "We as Christians," says Cumberland, "owe some respect to the Jews as the people chosen by God to be the keepers of those prophetic records which announce the coming of the Messias." x)
In some other numbers 2) of The Observer, in which Cumberland proves himself to be a good story-teller, we hear again of Mr. Abrahams. He shows his benevolence, his philanthropy and his hospitality by coming to the rescue of a poor widow and her daughter, whose debts he pays and whom he conveys to his own house. He appeals to the widow's father, a proud and rich man, who turns him out of the house, because he is a Jew. Later on we learn that the different persons are reconciled to each other, and that Constantia, the daughter, marries Ned Drowsy, through the intermediary of the good-natured Mr. Abrahams. The latter's name is very little mentioned, but instead of it the author frequently employs phrases like: the humble Israelite, the honest Jew, the friendly Israelite, the worthy Hebrew, and the compassionate Israelite.
When wishing to account for the origin of this second benevolent Jew in English literature we must assume that Gellert's Polish Jew and Smollett's Joshua Manasseh had exercised a great influence on Cumberland, whose kind heart and honest religious belief actuated him to be tolerant and benevolent towards others. But the spirit of the age must also be considered as an important factor. The closing decades of the eighteenth century were a time of sentimentality, humanitarianism, and struggles for freedom and emancipation. In America a war of liberation was being carried on; in Germany the period of Sturm und Drang, which was characterized by a feverish desire for liberty, and which also occasioned a revolution in literature, was making itself feit; in France Rousseau, Mirabeau, Voltaire
x) The British Essayists, XXXVIII, p. 257.
2) Nos. 41—46.



was an event that took place in the year 1780, the socalled Gordon or No-Popery riots. On June 2 Lord George Gordon (1751—1793), an eccentric nobleman, headed a mob which marched to the Houses of Parliament in order to present a petition against the Catholic Relief Act of 1779. Terrible riots followed, which lasted for several days. Some Roman Catholic chapels and other buildings were destroyed, and the cry "No Popery! No Papists! No French!" was heard in the streets. Maria Edgeworth (1767—1849), referring to these
events in her novel Harrington (1817) remarks: " sud-
denly a cry was raised against the Jews; unfortunately Jews rhymed to shoes; these words were hitched into a rhyme, and the cry was 'No Jews, no wooden shoes'. Thus without any natural, civil, religious, moral or political connection, the poor Jews came in remainder to the ancient anti-Gallican antipathy feit by English feet and English fancies against the French wooden shoes." x) Margoliouth assures us that these words were no fiction but sober truth. 2) One of the consequences of these riots was that old prejudices were suddenly remembered again, so that the Jews were subjected to great annoyance, part of which is described in Harrington. 3) Dickens, in his description of the Gordon riots in Barnaby Rudge (1841), which is said to be true to history, tells us that the Jews in Houndsditch, Whitechapel, and those quarters, wrote upon their doors or window-shutters: "This House is a True Protestant." 4) Lord George Gordon was arrested on a charge of high treason, but was acquitted on the ground that he had no treasonable intentions. In 1786 he embraced the Jewish
!) Harrington, ch. XV. This novel, to which more attention will be paid in the latter part of this section, because it deals with conditions and events in connection with the Jews between the years 1750 and 1780, was occasioned, as the preface informs us "by an extremely well-written letter, which Miss Edgeworth received from America, from a Jewish lady, complaining of the illiberality with which the Jewish nation had been treated in some of Miss Edgeworth's works." These were evidently Castte Rackrent (1800), Moral Tales (1801) and The Absentee (1812).
2) Margoliouth, op. cit., II, p. 121.
s) Harrington, ch. XV.
4) Barnaby Rudge, ch. LXIII. In the preface to this novel Dickens says: "No account of the Gordon Riots have been to my knowledge introduced in any work of fiction". It is strange that he did not seem to know that in 1817 Maria Edgeworth had described an episode of them in her Harrington.



faith, partly, it is said, to give celebrity to his financial schemes; he hoped the Jews would combine to withhold loans for carrying on wars. x)
It is highly probable that the events of the year 1780 also stimulated Cumberland to write on the Jewish question, but it is not true as Landa 2) remarks, that he was also drawn to it by the conversion of Lord George Gordon to Judaism. As we have seen above, the latter changed his religion in 1786 and Cumberland's sketch of Abrahams was published in 1785.
From a psychological point of view the character of Abrahams was an improvement on Gellert's Polish Jew and Smollett's Joshua Manasseh. The latter are really impeccable persons, which cannot be said of Abrahams, who had committed a murder as a young man. He is also less sentimental than the other two. For the rest the three benevolent Jews resemble each other very much, which is evident from the analysis of their characters in this and the foregoing chapters.
In 1790 Cumberland portrayed another Jew, a figure less improbable than Abrahams. Three numbers 3) of The Observer are devoted to him. Nicolas Pedrosa, as he is called, is a barber and surgeon at Madrid, who secretly adheres to Judaism. Returning from a patiënt one day, he cannot manage his refractory mule, which bolts and hurts some friars. The result is that he is put in prison by the Inquisition. He is liberated by the inquisitor-general on condition that he administers a draught which this man gives him, to Donna Leonora de Casafonda, who had just been delivered of a child by Pedrosa. The latter promises everything that is asked from him, but suspecting foul play, he flies to Portugal, "a country where the scattered flock of Israël fold thick and fare well", and becomes a surgeon's mate on an English frigate. He is described as a lively good-humoured little fellow, who grew in favour with everybody on board from the captain to the cook's mate. He tells all his adventures to the master of the ship, who promises to protect him against the Inquisition. Pedrosa is very grateful to his benefactor. After some adventures he reaches London
*) Dictionary of National Biography.
2) Landa, op. cit., p. 130.
3) The British Essayists, XXXIX, p. 254—276.



and starts a shop in Duke's place, where "he breathes the veins and cleanses the bowels of his Israelite brethren, in a land of freedom and toleration."
In this story, just as in that of Abrahams, Cumberland exposes the Inquisition and its treatment of the Jews. x) In the years 1780—'81 he had spent fourteen months in Spain as ambassador of the English government. There he may have heard stories like that just related. As a matter of fact, many accounts of Jews who had been liberated from the clutches of the Inquisition, and who afterwards settled in London, were in circulation about the middle of the eighteenth century. 2) Cumberland's attacks on the Inquisition, which must also be considered as an outcome of the humanitarian movement, were renewed by Coleridge in his tragedy Remorse (1797), by Andrews and Pye in The Inquisitor (1798), an adaptation of a German play (Unzer's Diego und Leonore, 1775); other German attacks on the Inquisition are to be found in Schiller's Don Carlos (1787), and Kotzebue's A delheid von Wuifingen (1789). »)
The Observer 4) also records Cumberland's intervention in a controversy on the miracles of Moses and those of Christ, between David Levi, a Jew, and Dr. Priestley, a dissenting minister and scientist of great distinction. Although this is done in a friendly spirit — he speaks of the learned Jew whose hostile opinions we tolerate — Cumberland cannot refrain from saying: "A descendant of those who murdered Christ, may act in character, when he insults his miracles and ridicules his person, but a believer in Christ will be an imitator of his patience." 5) And some pages further on: . and the futile cavils of a recent publication by a distinguished writer of the Jewish nation, are such weak and impotent assaults upon our religion, as only serve to confirm us in it the more." 6)
In his treatise on magie and magicians he again stands up for the Jews when he asserts that the Roman Catholic Church
x) See pp. 66 and 70.
2) Margoliouth, op. cit., II, p. 95.
3) Cf. Nicoll, op. cit., p. 55.
4) The British Essayists, XXXIX, p. 81—102.
5) ibid., XXXIX, p. 95.
8) ibid., XXXIX, p. 102.



often used charges of sorcery as a strong weapon against heretics, Jews and Mahometans, and illustrates this, as far as the Jews are concerned, by a laughable account of one Zedekiah, a Jewish physician, who in 876, in the presence of the Emperor Lodewick the pious, swallowed a prize-fighter on horseback and performed other tricks still more miraculous. Cumberland pokes fun at the author of this story, Trithemius *), when he says: "I take these facts upon the credit of the learned Joannes Trithemius, a very serious and respectable author." 2)
Some of Cumberland's poetical efforts also contain a few references to Jews, but strangely enough, they are not very complimentary. In A Poem on Dorinda (1785), a satire on parents who leave the education of their children to a "hireling", the following stanza occurs 3):
He drains his stewards, racks his farms,
Annuitizes, fines, renews,
And every morn his levee swarms With swindlers and with Jews.
In Popularity (1789) they are again mentioned in the same breath with all kinds of disreputable persons 4):
But, as the chymist by his skill
From dross and dregs a spirit can distil,
So from the prisons, or the stews,
Bullies, blasphemers, cheats or Jews
Shall turn to heroes, if they serve thy 5) views.
As we said at the beginning of this chapter, Cumberland also did justice to the Jews in some of his dramatic works. These, the epoch-making comedy The Jew (1794), and the comic opera The Jew of Mogadore (1808), will be investigated elsewhere in this thesis.
Besides Raspe, Taylor and Cumberland, another author should be mentioned here whose writings also display a kindlier
*) Trithemius (1462—1516), abbot of St. Jacob at Würzburg, is, as may be gathered, an unreliable historian. His Opera Historica were published in 1601.
2) The British Essayists, XXXVIII, p. 210.
s) ibid., XXXVIII, p. 186.
4) ibid., XXXIX, p. 243.
6) "thy" refers to popularity.



Sancho. Goods news, Carlos; the old Jew is dead.
Carlos. What Jew ?
Sancho. Why, the rich Jew, my father. He's gone to the bosom of Abraham his father, and I, his Christian son, am left sole heir. Now do I intend to be monstrously in love. x)
Later on, when it dawns on him that he has been practised upon by Dalinda, or Delilah the Philistine, as he calls her, he again alludes to his late father in a contemptible way:
Sancho. Is it even thus, Dalinda?
Lopez. Christian patience, son-in-law.
Sancho. Christian patience! I say pagan fury. This is enough to make me turn Jew again, like my father of Hebrew memory. 2)
Other disagreeable traits of his character are his vanity and his boastfulness. It is not necessary to enumerate all the places where the Jew speaks of himself in a vainglorious manner; some examples will suffice. When he has requested Carlos to introducé him to the very first lady he meets, he says: "Fortune ever superscribes my letters to the fair sex .... she will certainly fall in love with me."3) To Lopez, who asks him whether he has already spoken to Dalinda, he replies: "No woman has the power to resist my courtship." 4) And when Dalinda advises him to act the part of the Count, he raises the folio wing objection: "It is impossible for me to counterfeit a fooi. A man of my sense can never hide his parts." 6) Add to these sentiments phrases like "I am cunning", and "I did prodigious things", and one gains a fairly good idea of the boastful talk in which the Jew indulges. The opinion which others have of him is less favourable. Carlos calls him "a sneaking fellow, whose outside is tawdry and whose inside is a fooi." Lopez says that Sancho is "little better than a coxcomb", and Dalinda
*) Act I, SC. I.
2) Act V, sc. i.
3) Act I, sc. i.
4) ibid.
6) Act II, SC. 2



confesses that she has "a kind of loathing to a fooi." Carlos also thinks him covetous, but as this is not exhibited anywhere in the play, it seems that cupidity was not his besetting sin. The Jew's stupidity perhaps dominates all his other characteristics. He is so credulous and slow-witted that Carlos has no difficulty in gulling him several times. He also allows himself to be imposed upon by Dalinda and her father, who pretend to be rich, but in reality are very poor. And when he plays the Count, he often commits himself by saying stupid things.
There is in Sancho's character nothing that compensates his disagreeable qualities. It is true, he does not bear Dalinda a grudge in the end, and he readily adopts her two children, but we are inclined to attribute this sudden and uncommon meekness to his spineless character. Perhaps even Dryden himself thought Sancho's behaviour a little unusual, for he says in the Epilogue:
I fear there are few Sanchos in the pit,
So good as to forgive, and to forget.
In spite of the author's assertion in the Dedication: "I dare affirm that the several manners which I have given to the persons of this drama are truly drawn from nature," it is manifest that Sancho is not a natural character, but a grotesque and one-sided being that cannot be said to move within the pale of ordinary humanity. But he is not only a failure from a psychological point of view, but also from a literary standpoint, because all his sayings are insipid and dull. As a matter of fact the whole comic part is uninteresting, it is too incongruous. Only in the serious plot there are some passages which rise to dramatic grandeur.
When endeavouring to tracé the origin of Dryden's Jew we shall first have to consult the sources from which the author may have drawn when he wrote the play we are reviewing. According to Dryden himself, there were no sources to which he went for material, for he informs us in the Prologue:
But here's a story, which no books relate,
Coined from our own old poet's addle-pate.



ine racts are against him, however, for the greater part of the serious plot has been traced to Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and no King (1619) x), and two of the comic scenes seem to have been suggested by Molière's Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669), while Sancho is said to be a reminiscence of Lélie in the same author's first play l'Etourdi (1656). 2)
As the Jew figures in the aforesaid comic parts, and as in the available sources the plagiarisms are not proved, but only mentioned as mere facts, we shall have to ascertain the truth of these assertions by comparing the corresponding scenes of the plays referred to. In Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (Act II, sc. 5) we read a conversation between Oronte, his daughter Julie and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, who asks the young lady's hand in marriage, but meets with a rebuff, not on the part of the daughter, but of the father, who objects to the youth on account of his state of health and his debts. In Dryden's play we have a similar scene, although the circumstances are somewhat different. Again there are a father (Lopez) and a daughter (Dalinda) on the stage, but this time there are two suitors: Sancho and Carlos. One must admit that this episode is something more than a feeble echo of the corresponding part of Molière's play. The way in which Dalinda behaves towards the Jew is almost a faithful copy of the manner in which Julie approaches her lover.
The similarity between the other two scenes3) is no less striking. In the French comedy two women are shown in, who, in the presence of Julie's father and her lover, pretend to be the latter's wife, and who have brought three children with them as proofs of their assertions. In Dryden's play a boy and a girl are ushered in on the day when Sancho and Dalinda are married. Here it is the wife who is exposed, whereas in Molière's drama it is the husband who is unmasked.
We now come to l'Etourdi, whose principal character Lélie is said to have been present to Dryden's mind when he created
*) E. Schröder, op. cit., p. 6.
2) D. H. Miles, The Influence of Molière on Restoration Comedy, New York, 1910, p. 233.
3) Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Act II, sc. 8, and Love Triumphant, Act V, sc. 1.



admission of the Jews into England. J) In 1660 Thomas Violet, a goldsmith, intimated to the Privy Council that the Jews might be harassed, and suggested that their property should be confiscated, and they themselves put in prison. 2) Four years later a conspiracy was brought to light, which revealed an attempt to blackmail the Jews. 3) In 1673 some zealous members of the Church of England tried to get the Jews indicted for meeting illegally for public worship. 4) In the first year of the reign of James the Second (1685) thirty-seven Jewish merchants were arrested for not attending any place of worship. 5) In all these cases it was the sovereign who extended his protecting hand to the Jews. A few years before the publication of Love Triumphant, in 1689. the old practice of levying extra taxes on them, when the country wanted money, seemed to revive. The House of Commons needed a large sum to enable King William to re-conquer Ireland and to continue the war with France. It was proposed that a hundred thousand pounds should be exacted from the Jews. The proposition was favourably received at first, but was abandoned when the Jews presented a petition in which they declared "that they could not afford to pay such a sum, and that they would rather leave the kingdom than stay there to be ruined." 6) On that occasion some enlightened politicians argued "that special taxation, laid on a small class which happens to be rich, impopular and defenceless, is really confiscation, and must ultimately impoverish rather than enrich the state." ')
If we have dealt with Love Triumphant at some length, let it be said in justification that Dryden is not an author to be dismissed in a few lines; nor should the fact be overlooked that he makes a new departure in the treatment of the Jew in English literature. 8) He is probably the first dramatist who
1) Hyamson, op. cit., pp. 200—203.
2) ibid., p. 214.
3) ibid., p. 218.
4) ibid., p. 220.
s) ibid., p. 220.
6) Macaulay, History of England, Ch. XV, section 3.
') ibid.
8) The ridicule of the Jews dates far back in the history of the drama. "It is certain," says Abrahams, "that in the Roman plays, as performed in



represents him as a fooi. The Elizabethan playwrights had depicted him quite differently; and their view may be illustrated by the following quotation from Abbott: "The Jew was popularly regarded as the quintessence of all that is foul, grim and greedy in human form. In him the Englishman saw all the qualities that he detested: covetousness, deceitfulness and cruelty." 1) Henceforward, however, the Jew is introduced into a play mainly for farcical purposes. To some extent he replaces the clown of the older drama. A few centuries ago he had served the same purpose in the old Mystery plays. 2) By making Sancho a kind of buffoon, Dryden virtually revives this practice, thus smoothing the way for the ridiculous Jew who was to become a stock figure on the eighteenth century stage.
Syria, a favourite topic for raillery was provided by Judaism. The clowns or mimes laughed at the Pentateuch and at the Jewish sabbath. Jewish women were publicly forced to eat swine's flesh in the theatres. With such examples the medieval playwrights had no hesitation as to the use to be made of the Jews. In the Carnival plays and in similar comedies the Jews were uniformly reviled or laughed at. Then the tale of abuse was taken up by the dramatists of all countries" (Israël Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, London, 1896,
P- 257)-
1) F. G. Abbott, Israël in Europe, London, 1907, p. 272.
2) H. Michelson, The Jew in Early English Literature, Amsterdam, 1926, p. 60.



CHAPTER VI
THE JEW OF VENICE
On the very threshold of the eighteenth century we are confronted with a travesty of one of Shakespeare's plays, which, as presenting some features of interest, not from an aesthetic or artistic standpoint, but with regard to the way in which the Jew is delineated, next calls for our attention. This is The Jew of Venice 1), a comedy written by George Granville, Lord Lansdowne (1667—1735). a poor versifier and dramatist, and printed in London in 1701. Adapted and at the same time abridged from The Merchant of Venice, it was acted for the first time at Lincoln's Inn Fields in May 1701, and replaced its original for exactly forty years, during which time it was performed about forty times, until the revival of The Merchant of Venice in I74r> which we shall treat in a later chapter in connection with the author of another Jew play.
The theme of Granville's comedy is much the same as that of The Merchant of Venice. Antonio, a merchant, borrows money from Shylock the Jew, for the sake of Bassanio, a young spendthrift, who is desirous to marry the rich Portia. If the loan is not repaid in due time, Shylock may cut a pound of flesh from Antonio's body where he chooses. Jessica, Shylock's daughter, elopes with a Christian, called Lorenzo, Bassanio's friend, after robbing her father of his gold and jewels. When Antonio, who has often insulted his competitor Shylock, fails to repay the money in time, the Jew insists on his pound of flesh, but is defeated, because he is not allowed to spill a single drop of blood.
In a queer prologue written by a certain Bevill Higgons, a forgotten playwright, and spoken by the Ghosts of Dryden and Shakespeare, the latter is made to say among other things:
These scenes in their rough Native Dress were mine;
But now improved with nobler Lustre shine;
*) This play should not be confused with Dekker's Jew of Venice (entered at Stationer s Hall in 1653)» a lost drama of which nothing is known with certainty.



The first rude Sketches Shakespear's Pencil drew,
But all the shining Master-stroaks are new.
This play, ye Criticks, shall your Fury stand,
Adorned and rescued by a faultless Hand.
Genest1) rightly observes that Granville must have been the vainest of mortals to have suffered this Prologue to have been spoken.
When comparing the Dramatis Personae of the two plays we see that Granville left out no less than eight characters, among whom Launcelot Gobbo (a clown and servant to Shylock), Old Gobbo (father to Launcelot) and Tubal (a Jew and friend to Shylock) are conspicuous. The omission of Launcelot Gobbo and his father must be considered a serious loss, as the scenes is which they appear undoubtedly serve as a comic relief to the intensely tragic parts of the play. Moreover, the light that Launcelot throws on Shylock's character, should not be undervalued. It is also to be regretted that Granville left out the character of Tubal, "another of the tribe", as Salanio calls him, because we do not witness now that remarkable scene where, owing to Tubal's doublé news — his not being able to find Jessica and Antonio's loss of a large merchantman — Shylock's state of mind suddenly passes from grief to joy.
Our main object being to examine the Jewish figures in Granville's version (Shylock and Jessica), we cannot enter into further details as regards the general features of the play, but we must confine ourselves to these preliminary remarks.
When Shylock appears on the scene for the first time, in the last part of Act I, and speaks to Bassanio, he uses almost the same words as his colleague in The Merchant of Venice, except that Granville makes him say the altogether redundant 2) sentences:
When a Man is rich, we say He is good Man.
As on the Contrary, when he has nothing, we say a Poor Rascal: 'tis the Phrase, 'tis the Phrase. 
1) J. Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, London, 1832, II, P- 245-
2) Shylock has already explained the meaning of the word "good" in the preceding lines:
My meaning in saying he (Ant.) is a good Man is to have you understand that I think him A sufficiënt Man.



CHAPTER VII
HOGARTH'S A HARLOT'S PROGRESS AND ITS INFLUENCE
Compared with the dramatists of the second half of the eighteenth century, those of the earlier years paid relatively little attention to the Jews. I have been able to discover only four Jew plays written before 1750:
Cibber, The Harlot's Progress; or, The Ridotto al' Fresco (1733). Anon., The Jew Decoyed; or, The Progress of a Harlot (1735). Fielding, Miss Lucy in Town (1742).
Anon., The Jerusalem Infirmary; or, A Journey to the Valley
of Jehosaphat (1749).
The reasons for the comparative neglect of the Jews by the Restoration playwrights, brought forward in the chapter on Love Triumphant, also hold good, for the greater part at least, for the period discussed in this section. It should also be borne in mind that the Jews led a quiet life, did not come very much to the fore and tried to prove themselves useful citizens. We saw that in 1745 they even showed particular loyalty to the Government during the Jacobite rebellion. In The Surgeon's Daughter Sir Walter Scott, referring to this period, makes one of his characters say: "Though they are of ten very respectable people, they have no territorial property, because the law is against them.... The Jews are well attached to government; they hate the Pope, the Devil and the Pretender as much as any honest man among ourselves." x) In 1747 the London Jews enthusiastically supported the production of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus; they welcomed it as a glorification of a great Jewish hero, which largely contributed to its success. 2) Occasionally we find instances of a kindlier feeling towards the Jews. Of Thomas Herring (1693—1757), Archbishop of
*) The Surgeon's Daughter, ch. II. Cf. K. Bos, Religious Creeds and Philosophies in Sir Walter Scott's Works, Amsterdam, 1932, p. 253.
2) Lecky, op. cit., vol. I, p. 537.



Canterbury, we read that he befriended the Jews. x) In 1736 a pamphlet was issued under the following conspicuous title: "Complaints of the Children of Israël concerning the Penal Laws; a Burlesque on the Dissenters petitioning for a Repeal of the Test Act." It went through seven editions and was signed by Solomon Abarbanel, but the remarkable thing about it was that its writer, a certain W. Arnall, was a Gentile. 2)
The historians of the day probably also contributed to better feelings towards the Jews. In 1706 Jacob Christian Basnage 3), a Huguenot clergyman at Rotterdam, began to publish his famous work: L'Histoire de la Religion des Juifs depuis Jésus Christ jusqu'a Présent. This book, which bears testimony to the author's profound study and love of truth, did not fail to draw general attention. An English translation by A. M. Taylor followed in 1708, which in all probability helped to pave the way for more tolerant views concerning the Jews in England. Another historian whose name should be mentioned in this connection is Dr. D'Blossiers Tovey, who published in 1738: Anglia Judaica; or, the History and Antiquities of the Jews in England. In the preface he writes: "I shall detain him [the reader] no longer by way of preface than to desire him not to mistake my intention in reviving so many instances of persecution against the English Jews in former times, as if I proposed them as a fit example for the present." Many other instances of the tolerant opinions of the author could be given here. Let one more be sufficiënt. On page 304 he remarks: "The Jews are as legally entitled to the publick worship of God in their own way, as any persons whatever. And tho' it should be affirmed that no positive law does allow it, yet I wou'd still call the refusal of such liberty unreasonable, because subversive of charity, which is the bond of perfectness.'
There are perhaps also reasons of a literary nature to be advanced for the fact that no new stage Jew was created during a period of more than thirty years (1701—1733) • Dryden's Love Triumphant had proved to be a downright failure4), and
!) The Cambridge History of English Literature, X, p. 362.
2) See E. N. Calisch, The Jew in English Literature, Richmond, 1909, p. 102.
3) See the article on Basnage in The Jewish Encyclopaedia.
*) Dryden, The Dramatic Works, The Nonesuch Press, London, 1932, vol. VI, p. 402.



delivered. After the birth of the child Mr. Moabite had wanted to make a Jew of the boy at once, but Mrs. Mandrake had threatened to reveal everything, if the Jew should "commit such a barbarity" on the child. x)
In Vanbrugh's The Confederacy (Haymarket, Oct. 1705) Brass tries to get money out of his companion Dick in a very mean way, which causes the latter to exclaim: "Ah, you Jew".2) It is evident that in this case as well as in most of the above instances the word Jew is used as a term of abuse. Another example is to be found in a play by John Gay (1685—1732), The What d'ye Catt it, a "tragi-comi-pastoral" farce, which was performed at Drury Lane in Febr. 1715, and enjoyed a popularity almost as great as the same author's The Beggar's Opera (Lincoln's Inn Fields, Jan. 1727/8). In Act II, sc. 3, of the first-mentioned play Peascod calls out: "What a Jew my sister is!" when he discovers that she had been seduced by Squire Thomas, whereas she had sworn that another man had debauched her. In The Beggar's Opera allusion is made to a profligate Jew. Two "women of the town", Mrs. Slammekin and Dolly Trull are talking about their "friends" as follows:
Ham. Who do you look upon, madam, as your best sort of keepers ?
Trull. That, madam, is thereafter as they be.
Ham. I, madam, was once kept by a Jew; and bating their religion, to women they are a good sort of people. 3)
The name of a well-known lady-dramatist of those days should next be mentioned. In the extremely popular comedy The Busie Body (Drury Lane, May 1709) Mrs. Susannah Centlivre makes Sir Charles Gripe say to Sir George Airy, who is in love with Miranda, Sir Francis Gripe's ward: "Nay, then I pity you; for the Jew my father will no more part with her and thirty thousand pounds than he would with a guinea to keep me from starving." 4) Sir Francis is introduced to us as an avaricious and hyprocritical individual. Mrs. Centlivre's
*) The Twin-Rivals, Act IV, sc. i.
2) The Confederay, Act III, sc. 2.
3) The Beggar's Opera, Act II, sc. 4.
*) The Busie Body, Act I, sc. 1.



A Bold Stroke for a Wife (Lincoln's Inn Fields, Febr. 1718) has a scene describing 'Change Alley. x) One of the stock-jobbers depicted here, is called Gabriel Skinflint, who may have been meant for a Jew. Another stock-jobber asks: "Zounds, where are all the Jews this afternoon?"
The works of Colley Cibber (1671—1757) also call for attention in this chapter. In The Non-Juror (Drury Lane, Dec. 1717), a play notorious owing to its fierce attack on the English Roman Catholics, the hypocritical and villainous Doctor Wolf is called "the Jewish Cormorant". One of his confederates is a Jew who bears the conspicuous name of Aaron Sham. 2) In The Refusal; or, The Ladies Philosophy (Drury Lane, Febr. 1721), part of which describes the excitement produced by the South Sea Bubble, he gives a vivid picture of the daily bustle in 'Change Alley, where there are also a Jew and a parson "making up differences". 3) An offensive couplet in theEpilogue of this play has already been quoted in chapter one. The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey to London (Drury Lane, Jan. 1727/8), which proved to be a great success, again alludes to dissolute Jews. In Act V, sc. 3, a mask says to Lady Townly, after giving a description of most of the men who had attended a masquerade: "The rest I suppose, by their tawdry hired habits, are tradesmen's wives, Inns-of-Court Beaux, Jews, and kept mistresses," which makes Lady Townly exclaim: ' An admirable collection!"
Colley Cibber's Love Makes a Man; or, The Fop's Fortune (Drury Lane, Dec. 1700) should also be mentioned here, not because it contains anything of interest for the present study, but because we might expect to find a Jew among its dramatis personae. Cibber concocted this extremely popular comedy by welding together Fletcher's Custom of the Country (acted in 1628) and the same author's The Elder Brother (performed after 1625). 4) In the first-mentioned play there is a Jew called Zabulon, the servant and tooi of Hippolyta, a wealthy lady. This character was left out by Cibber. Although Cardozo 5) postdates
*) A Bold Stroke for a Wife, Act IV, sc. i.
2) The Non-Juror, Act II, sc. 1.
3) The Refusal, Act I, sc. i.
4) Genest, op. cit., II, p. 229.
6) Cardozo, op. cit., p. 178.



Love Makes a Man by about fifty years when he asks: "What caused Cibber towards the middle of the eighteenth century to eliminate the Jew from this play?" the answer: "There were plenty of Italian and Portuguese Jews in Hanoverian England, but they would not fit into plays of that style" need hardly be revised. We might add a few other reasons, however, namely that Cibber, influenced by Collier's Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) 1), and compelled to reduce the two plays to a much smaller compass, omitted Zabulon, because he played a prominent part in the disgusting passages of The Custom of the Country, and because he was an unimportant and superfluous character. 2) This much is certain, however, that Cibber did not leave out Zabulon to spare the Jews.
The first five decades of the century also produced a number of plays in which historical Jews figure. As they were all taken either from Biblical themes or from Jewish history, they will not be dealt with here, because we are solely interested in contemporary Jews. Suffice it to give a fairly complete list of them. 3) It seems convenient to mention all the religious and historical dramas of Jewish interest of the whole eighteenth century here.
1702. Mrs. Jane Wiseman, Antiochus the Great; or, The Fatal Relapse, a tragedy.
1703. Anon., Jephta's Rash Vow; or, The Virgin's Sacrifice, a droll.
1) In Ch. VIII of his Apology Cibber discusses the good effect of Collier's pamphlet (An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, London, 1756, 4th edition, vol. I, p. 201).
2) After I had arrived at this conclusion, I came across a booklet by Gotthardt Ost: Das Verhaltnis von Cibber's Lustspiel 'Love Makes a Man' zu Fletcher's Dramen 'The Elder Brother' und 'The Custom of the Country' (Halle, 1897). Ost is also of opinion that Cibber omitted the Jew because he thought his part improbable, unimportant and objectionable (pp. 53, 54 and 83).
3) I should not have been able to compile the greater part of them but for the inexhaustible lists of plays which Professor Allardyce Nicoll has appended to his admirable volumes dealing with eighteenth century drama: A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama, Cambridge, 1925, and A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama, Cambridge, 1927. To these two works I am also greatly indebted for the titles and dates of performance and publication of the plays discussed in this thesis.



1703. Dr. Joseph Trapp, The Tragedy of King Saul, a tragedy.
1715. Thomas Brereton, Esther; or, Faith Triumphant, a tragedy.
1717. Edward Biddle, Augustus, a tragedy.
1719. Anon., The Life of King Ahasverus; or, The Delightful
History of Esther, a droll.
1721. John Mottley, Antiochus, a tragedy.
1723. Elijah Fenton, Mariamne, a tragedy.
1724. Wïlliam Duncombe, Athaliah, a tragedy.
1727. Thomas Harrison, Belteshazzar; or, The Heroic Jew, a
dramatic poem.
1740. Francis Peck, Herod the Great, a dramatic piece. 1740. Charles Shuckburgh, Antiochus, a New Tragedy. 1750. John Bland, The Song of Solomon, a drama.
1760. Aaron Hill, Saul, a tragedy.
1761. Edward Crane, Saul and Jonathan, a tragedy. 1763. Mary Latter, The Siege of Jerusalem, a tragedy. 1766. Joseph Wise, The Coronation of David, a drama.
1782. Mrs. Hannah More, Sacred Dramas: 1. Moses in the Bulrushes. 2. Belshazzar. 3. David and Goliath. 4. Daniël.
1783. Mrs. Ann Wilson, Jephthah's daughter, a dramatic poem. 1785. Thomas Holcroft, Sacred Dramas, translated from Madame Genlis: 1. The Death of Adam. 2. Hagar in the Wilderness. 3. Joseph made known to his Brethren. 4. Return of Tobias. 5. Ruth and Naomi. 6. Sacrifice of Isaac. 7. Widow of Sarepta.
1789. Anon., Joseph sold by his Brethren, a sacred drama. 1793. Anon., Daniël in the Lion's Den, an adaptation of Mrs.
More's Daniël (1782).
1798. Allen, Hezekiah, King of Judah, a sacred drama.
The first real stage Jew of the century is to be found in The Harlot's Progress; or, The Ridotto al 'Fresco, performed at Drury Lane in March 1733. It is called a grotesque pantomime entertainment by the author Theophilus Cibber (1703—1758), an actor and playwright of little or no merit, and son of the well-known Colley Cibber. Although The Harlot's Progress is an unsavoury production, we shall have to pay some attention



to it, because its influence on several other Jew plays can be traced.
Cibber dedicated this nondescript drama to "the ingenious Mr. Hogarth, on whose celebrated designs it is planned." William Hogarth (1697—1774), the painter, established his fame in 1733 by issuing a series of six engravings called A Harlot's Progress, in which he portrays the vicissitudes of a country girl. We witness her arrival in town, we see her as the mistress of a rich Jew1), and follow her to Bridewell, a notorious house of correction; after her release we find her back dangerously ill in a garret, and the last print represents her shameful funeral. 2) The title of Hogarth's successful series is said to have been suggested by John Bunyan's Pügrim's Progress (1678).
Soon after the publication of the engravings a pirated copy of them appeared with explanatory verses, in which the girl is called Polly. It is not a bold conjecture to suggest that this name was no doubt taken from the heroine of Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728). The incident depicted in the second print, the only one which concerns us here, because the Jew figures in it, is described in the following wretched lines3):
Poor Polly's forc'd to walk the streets,
Till with a wealthy Jew she meets.
Quickly the man of circumcision For her reception makes provision.
You see her now in all her splendour,
A monkey and a Black t'attend her.
How great a sot's a keeping cully,
Who thinks t'enjoy a woman solely!
Tho' he support her grandeur, Miss Will by the bye with others kiss.
*) This is not the only Jew that was immortalized by Hogarth. In Canvassing for Votes, the second picture of an Election Entertainment (1755)» there occurs a Jewish pedlar, who is called "a very Jew in grain" by Hazlitt (The English Comic Writers, p. 187).
2) Reproductions of the engravings are to be found in John Nichols' and George Steevens' The Genuine Works of William Hogarth, 3 vols, London, 1808—17.
3) Nichols and Steevens, op. cit., II, p. 105.



Thus Polly played her part; she had A Beau admitted to her bed;
But th'Hebrew coming unexpected,
Puts her in fear to be detected.
This to prevent, she at breakfast picks A quarrel, and insulting kicks The table down; while by her maid The Beau is to the door convey'd.
In Cibber's The Harlot's Progress the young lady is called Miss Kitty, while the other chief characters are Harlequin and the Jew Beau Mordecai. Although the latter name, which is one of the regular appellations of the eighteenth century stage Jew, was not uncommon among English Jews in Cibber's days, I think it more probable that it was suggested to him by the well-known story of Esther in the Old Testament, in which Mordecai saves his brethren from the destruction planned by Haman. In those days this story was dramatized more than once, as will appear from the list of religious dramas on page 109. Dr. Jacob de Castro Sarmento dealt with the same theme in a book which he published in London in 1728.1)
The following is a synopsis of Cibber's pantomime as far as the Jew is concerned. Kitty, who has been turned out of doors by her lover, the Debauchee, because he has found her in the company of Harlequin, goes away in the greatest distress. In the following scene she is again courted by Harlequin, this time in the lodging that the Jew has provided for her. The servant suddenly enters and tells her mistress that Mordecai is standing outside. Harlequin hides on the bed and Kitty seats herself on a settee. The Jew, who has entered meanwhile, is angry, because he has been kept waiting so long at the door, but is soon pacified when he sees that Kitty is alone. While they are drinking tea, Kitty makes signs to her servant to show Harlequin out, but when the latter is attempting to steal away, he accidentally drops his sword and cane. Mordecai, turning
*) Extraordinaria Providencia Que el Gran Dios de Ysrael Uso con su Escogido Pueblo en Tiempo de su Mayor Afflicion por Medio de Mordehay y Ester Contra los Protervos Intentos del Tyrano Aman, Deducida de la Sagrada Escritura en el Sequinte Romance.



round, perceives him and runs to secure the door, but nis mistress laughs at him and sings:
Farewell, good Mr. Jew;
Now I hate your tawny face,
ril have no more to do With you or any of your race.
Ne ver more will I come near Such a pitiful pimping fooi.*)
The insolent Kitty and her servant are now turned out of the house by the Jew, who pursues Harlequin. At this moment a picture falls down, Harlequin jumps through the hangings, and the painting returns to its place. lts subject, which was first a historical theme, is now changed into a representation of the Jew with horns upon his head. While Mordecai looks on in astonishment, another picture changes, which reveals Harlequin and Kitty embracing each other. The next scene shows us the meeting between Mordecai and his rival. The latter seizes the Jew by the leg, throws him down, jumps over him and runs away, pursued by Mordecai. The foliowing scenes portray Kitty's further life, but the Jew is seen no more.
We need not add much to this. Cibber's shameful picture of the Jew is even more objectionable than Hogarth's. The latter painted him only as a reprobate, the former as a fooi as well. It is remarkable that many of the characters of Hogarth's prints of A Harlot's Progress have been traced to living persons 2), whereas the Jew seems to have had no prototype at all. If the famous painter had had a pattern, we could not blame him so much for having gibbeted a profligate Jew, but as this does not seem to have been the case, we must hold him responsible for the unjustifiable creation of a character which could not be otherwise than offensive to his Jewish countrymen, and for the sudden resuscitation of the stage Jew, who, if we leave Granville's adaptation out of account, had been in abey-
ance for forty years.
If Hogarth had no prototype, what prompted him to m-
1) in Cibber's pantomime there is no speaking at all; six airs provide the
necessary relief.
2) Austin Dobson, Hogarth, London, 1879, p- 23.



troduce a dissipated Jew into his engravings( Ihe mciüents of A Harlot's Progress are said to have been taken from Terence's Andria (Act I, sc. i). x) We read here that Simo, the father of Pamphilus, tells his former slave Sosia about a young lady who had become his neighbour three years ago, and who was soon the mistress of several friends of his son's, although the latter himself seemed to be virtuous. The courtesan had suddenly died and Pamphilus and his friends had arranged the funeral and rendered her the last honours. Although the story of this light o' love is told very briefly 2), and the circumstances do not tally in all respects with those suggested by Hogarth's prints, the main facts are the same. No mention is made of a Jew, however. Austin Dobson 3) refers to one Major, who thought that No. 266 of the Spectator, in which a procuress is shown questioning a country girl who has come to town in a waggon, might have supplied a hint for the first plate. No allusion is made to a Jew here either. Notwithstanding these negative results of our search for the original of Hogarth's Jew in its more or less recognized sources, this figure is perhaps not difficult to account for. Jews who keep mistresses are mentioned in Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) 4), in Colley Cibber's The Provoked Husband (1728) ®) and in Farquhar's The Twin-Rivals (1702) 6).
!) Nichols and Steevens, op. cit., III, p. 11■
2) Andria, Act I, sc. 1, 11. 42—45, 47—54, 77—78» 80—81:
Interea muiier quaedam abhinc triennium Ex Andro commigravit huic viciniae,
Inopia et cognatorum neglegentia Coacta, egregia forma atque aetate integra.
Primo haec pudice vitam paree ac duriter Agebat, lana ac tela victum quaeritans:
Sed postquam amans accessit pretium pollicens,
Unus et item alter, ita ut ingeniumst omnium Hominum ab labore proclive ad libidinem,
Accepit conditionem, dein quaestum occipit.
Qui tum illam amabant, forte, ita ut fit, filium Perduxere illue, secum ut una esset, meum.
Fere in diebus paucis, quibus haec acta sunt,
Chrysis vicina haec moritur.
Cum illis, qui amabant Chrysidem, una aderat frequens: Curabat una funus.
s) Dobson, op. cit., p. 22.
4) See p. 106.
5) See p. 107.
8) See p. 105.
8



birth, born in the city of Cork. He is going into Cornwall to take possession of a small estate of twenty thousand pounds a year, left him the other day by a certain Dutch merchant's mistress, with whom he had an intrigue." 1) This reference to a wealthy Jew keeping a mistress probably points to Fielding being influenced by Hogarth. It is true, the comedy was already begun at Leyden in 1728, but the author himself informs us in the prologue that "after it had been sketched out into a few loose scenes, it was thrown by, and for a long while no more thought of."
There is another indication of the above-mentioned influence in Pasquin, A Dramatic Satire on the Times (Haymarket, March 1735/6). Again a Jew and his mistress are referred to, namely in Act IV, sc. 1, where the fact that the Queen is attended only by two maids of honour, is explained as follows by Prompter: "Sir, a Jew carried off the other, but I shall be able to piek up some more against the play is acted."
But the influence of A Harlot's Progress is most clear in Fielding's Miss Lucy in Town, a farce with songs. It was a sequel to The Virgin Unmasked, and was performed at Drury Lane on May 4, 1742. The play is of interest here, as it has a Jew called Zorababel, who was personated by the well-known actor Charles Macklin.
At the opening of the piece Mrs. Midnight, a keeper of a house of ill fame, complains that she has been reduced to let lodgings, and that "if it was not for Mr. Zorababel and some more of his persuasion", she would be compelled to shut up her doors. While she is still speaking, Mr. Thomas and his beautiful young wife — the Lucy of The Virgin Unmasked, who has married her footman — call to ask for apartments. Lucy has never been out of the country before and wants to be adored by all the beaux in town. After her husband has gone to a tailor, the procuress promises Lord Bawble, one of her customers, to introducé him to Lucy for a large sum of money. When His Lordship has gone home to fetch the amount Zorababel is brought in a chair. Then a shameful conversation takes place between the Jew and the procuress, part of which I shall quote here,
') Don Quixote in England, Act II, sc. 10.



because it sheds light on Zorababel's character, and because it is a startling specimen of what the eighteenth century dramatist dared to do to revile the Jews.
Zor. How do you do, Mrs. Midnight? I hope nobody sees or overhears. This is an early hour for me to visit at. I have but just been at home to dress me, since I came from the alley.
Mid. I suppose your worship's hands are pretty full there now
with your lottery-tickets ?
Zor. Fuller than I desire, I assure you. We hoped to have brought them to seven pounds before this; that would have been a pretty comfortable interest for our money. But have you any worth seeing in your house?
Mid. O Mr. Zorababel! such a piece! such an angel!
Zor. Let me see her this instant.
Mid. I have promised her to Lord Bawble.
Zor. How, promise her to a lord without offering her to me first? Let me teil you, 'tis an affront not only to me, but to all my friends; and you deserve never to have any but christians in your house again.
Mid. Marry for bid! Don't utter such curses against me. Zor. Who is it supports you ? Who is it can support you ? Who have any money besides us?
The upshot of the conversation is that the procuress is to produce the young lady for two hundred guineas. When some noisy people enter, Mrs. Midnight requests the Jew to go into an adjoining room, saying: "I am as tender of your reputation as of my own", which makes Zorababel remark: "I commend your care; for reputation is the very soul of a Jew." In a subsequent scene he makes love to Lucy, who promises to become his mistress after he has given her all the fine things he has mentioned. When Zorababel has gone to fetch them, Lord Bawble re-enters and persuades Lucy to go with him. Mr. Thomas returns from the tailor and is distressed to find that his wife has run away. She is not long is reappearing, however, dressed like a lady of fashion. When some high words are being exchanged between Mr. Thomas and his wife, the Jew, who has just arrived with an armful of trinkets, makes the foliowing



ion with the Jewish schools in Spain and in the East.x) Their reward was that "the wealth their industry accumulated was wrung from them whenever the King had need, and torture and imprisonment were resorted to if railder entreaties failed. It was the wealth of the Jews that filled the royal exchequer at the outbreak of war or of revolt." 2) Later on the noblemen followed the example of their King and also extorted large sums from them.
Although the successors of William the Conqueror protected the Jews more or less, they could not prevent repeated outbreaks of popular feeling. The reasons commonly given to account for the hatred of the Gentile for the Jew are: difference of race, difference of religion, and conflicting material interests. 3) The wealthy Jew especially must have been a cause of annoyance to the people, who seized every opportunity to vent their hatred. When in 1189 a deputation of Jews had gone to Westminster to be present at the coronation of Richard the First and to pay homage to him, they were attacked by the mob, and the rumour spreading that the King had ordered a general massacre, many Jews were killed. The third crusade was also an occasion for bloody persecutions of the Jews in England. Their position again became precarious when accusations of ritual child-murder were brought against them. In 1255 it caused an outburst of popular fury; the Jews were charged with having killed a boy of Lincoln, called Hugh. 4) Finally in 1290 Edward the First issued a decree banishing the Jews from the country. "Of the sixteen thousand," says Green, "who preferred exile to apostasy few reached the shores of France. Many were wrecked, others robbed and flung overboard. One ship-master turned out a crew of wealthy merchants on to a sandbank, and bade them call a new Moses to save them from the sea." 5)
There were probably no unconverted Jews in England
*) J. R. Green, op. cit., I. p. 80.
2) ibid., pp. 80, 81.
s) Michelson, op. cit., p. 141.
4) At the end of The Prioresses Tale (c. 1388) Chaucer mentions the murt der of Hugh of Lincoln as an example of Jewish cruelty. In 1801 Wordsworhwrote a modernized version of this tale.
6) Green, op. cit., I, p. 193.



between 1290 and 1655. *) In the latter year Cromweii appears to have given informal permission to them to reside and trade in England on condition that they did not obtrude their worship on public notice and that they refrained from making proselytes.2) The Protector's tolerant policy was continued by Charles the Second and his successors, and seldom do we read of injustice done to the Jews in those days, although several attempts were
made to harass them. 3)
Though they were now no longer persecuted, their social position was still far from agreeable, for they were not allowed to possess land or to hold public offices. What neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation had been able to do, was to be partly accomplished by the Age of Enlightenment, which was characterized by its struggle for liberty and justice. The spirit of tolerance was also to enter England ere long. We see the beginning of it in the opening years of the eighteenth century, although later on the tide turned again. In 1723 an Act of Parliament was passed which gave the Jews the right to hold land, and which removed the expression "upon the true faith of a Christian" from the Jewish oaths.
Thirty years after these concessions the so-called Jew BUI, which gave the Israelites the right of naturalization, passed both Houses. lts impopularity, however, was such that it had to be repealed in the following year, although the King had already ratified it. One of the results of this unsuccessful attempt at emancipation was that many well-to-do Jewish families resolved to bring up their children as Christians, which enabled them to hold public posts.
Meanwhile many German and Polish Jews, driven from their countries, had settled in England; not in London, the principal seat of the British Jews, who played such an important part in international commerce, but in the seaports of the south and west of England. As they were chiefly pedlars and petty traders, they visited many towns and villages in which later on they began to settle. "Traders of this type, while not of so much prominence as the larger merchants of the capital, came in
1) h. P. Stokes, A Short History of the Jews in England, London, 1921, P- 55-
2) The Jewish Encyclopaedia, V, p. 169.
a) See pp. 92, 93'



closer touch with English life; and they doubtless helped to allay some of the prejudice which had been manifested so strongly during 1753. 1)
But the greatest impulse was to come from abroad. The French Revolution and the teaching of enlightened men like Moses Mendelssohn (1729—1786), the grandfather of the famous composer, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729—1781), the author of Nathan der Weise, were destined to deal a severe blow to the spirit of intolerance, although it was some time bef ore the words of the French and German reformers met with a response in England. In this country the Jews had to wait for full emancipation till champions like Macaulay, Hazlitt and Gladstone had entered the lists for them; it was not until the year 1858 that the civil disabilities were removed from the British Jews. 2)
J) The Jewish Encyclopaedia, V, p. 170.
2) In Holland they had already been removed in 1796.







PART I
THE PROSE-WRITERS AND THE JEWS







CHAPTERI
THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PROSE-WRITERS
It has been said that the early eighteenth century prosewriters paid little attention to the Jews.1) That this is a myth we will endeavour to show in this chapter. From the very outset we find Jewish figures and references to Jews in the works of the novelists and the essayists. In the following pages we are chiefly concerned with the writings of Addison, Defoe, Shaftesbury, Swift, Pope and Fielding.
In The Spectator Joseph Addison (1672—1719) mentions the Jews several times 2), but only two essays contain important references (Nos. 213 and 495). In these two papers, which are dated Nov. 3, 1711 and Sept. 27, 1712, the author gives his opinion about the religion and the commercial ability of the Jews. He discusses the superstitions of their religion, and mentions their firm adherence to it, their number and their dispersion as strong arguments in favour of the Christian faith. Addison's magnanimity and his sense of propriety prevented him from saying this in such a way that it might give offence. Their commercial utility is expressed by him as follows: "they are become the instruments by which the most distant nations converse with one another, and by which mankind are knit together in a general correspondence. They are like the pegs and nails in a great building, which, though they are but little valued in themselves, are absolutely necessary to keep the whole frame together" (No. 495)-
The share which Daniël Defoe (1659—Ï731) had in the literary persecution of the Jews is considerable. The influence of Roxana, a novel that went through many editions, and in which he paints a Jew in the blackest colours, so that he
i) e. N. Calisch, The Jew in English Iiterature, as Author and as Subject, Richmond, 1909, p. 109.
a) Nos. 213, 405, 495 and 531.



can only rank with figures like Barabbas, Shylock and Fagin, is difficult to estimate. One would not have expected such a thing from the author of The Shortest Way with Dissenters, a masterly pamphlet issued in 1702, in which religious liberty is advocated in a very original way. Before dealing with Defoe's novels we shall first make a few observations in connection with his miscellaneous writings.
In the Mercurius Politicus of Jan. 1717 he gives some particulars about the trial1) of one Francis Francia, a Jew who had taken part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, and had consequently been accused of high treason. He is described as a miserable man who had nothing to subsist on and who was near starvation. Apart from the somewhat conspicuous mentioning of the word Jew in the heading of the paragraph — Trial of Francia, the Jew, for Rebellion — the account seems to be quite objective, so that further discussion of it here is not necessary.
There are several other references to Jews in Defoe's journalistic work, which, however, deserve no mention here, as they are unimportant or vague. But one of them, which is found in Mist's Journal 2) of April i, 1721, should be recorded in this chapter. "These advices [i. e. from the Royal Exchange] add too, that the Jews, and late South Sea Directors, have left off boiling their Westphalia hams in champaign and burgundy; so unstable are human affairs!" Defoe makes this satirical remark in connection with the notorious South Sea Bubble of 1720, which has been called the greatest financial disaster in the history of England. Colley Cibber, the dramatist, makes a similar observation in the epilogue to his The Refusal; or, The Ladies' Philosophy (Drury Lane, Febr. 1720):
Even Jews no bounds of luxury refrain,
But boil their Christian hams in pure champaign.
From the two above-mentioned dates we may conclude that Defoe took a hint from Cibber.
In Defoe's political writings and also in those of Swift the
l) William Lee, Daniël Defoe, his Life and Recently Discovered Writings, London, 1869, vol. II, p. 5.
') William Lee, op. cit., II, p. 359.



South Sea Bubble is a favourite topic, but it may be called a happy circumstance for the Jews that they are hardly ever ') mentioned in connection with it. As a matter of fact, this is also corroborated by history. Hyamson 2) remarks that the Jews, as a whole, stood aside from the wild speculations of the time, and Margoliouth3) informs us that no Jewish name occurs amongst the bankrupts of those days.
The way in which Biblical Jews are sometimes referred to should also be noted here. Defoe speaks of "the execrable Jews, crucifying the Lord of Life".4) That expressions like these were not always accepted without challenge may appear from the fact that the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671—1713) was censured for the following passage from his Letter concerning Enthusiasm (1707): "The Jews were naturally a very cloudy people, and would endure little raillery in anything; much less in what belonged to any religious doctrines or opinions. Religion was looked upon with a sullen eye; and hanging was the only remedy they could prescribe for anything which looked like setting up a new revelation."5) Another very unkindly reference to the Jews of the Bible occurs in Anthony Collin's Discourse of Freethinking (i7I3): "Josephus was a great freethinker. I wish he had chosen a better subject to write on than those ignorant, barbarous, ridiculous scoundrels, the Jews, whom God (if we may believe the priests) thought fit to choose for his own people." 6)
In Robinson Crusoe (1719) a clergyman makes mention of a person "who, having nothing but a summary notion of religion himself, and being wicked and profligate to the last degree in his life, made a thorough reformation in himself by labouring to convert a Jew."7) In Defoe's days, and especially
1) See p. 107.
2) A. M. Hyamson, A History of the Jews in England, London, 1908, p. 270.
3) Rev. Moses Margoliouth, The History of the Jews in Great Britain, London, 1851, vol. II, p. 67.
4) William Lee, op. cit., III, p. 142.
«) Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks, London, 1733, vol. I, p. 29.
') Cf. Swift's Abstract of Mr. Collin's Discourse. (Sir Walter Scott, The Works of Jonathan Swift, 2nd edition, London, 1883, vol. VIII, p. 188).
') The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniël De Foe (Bohn's Standard Library), London, 1855, vol. VII, p. 328.



during the reign of George the First (1714—1727) the clergymen of all Protestant denominations did their utmost to convert Jews to Christianity; the result was that many of them embraced the Christian faith. 1)
The picaresque novel Roxana; or, The Unfortunate Mistress (1724) next calls for attention. It is in this story that Defoe introducés a Jewish figure of unrelieved blackness. Roxana is a beautiful and accomplished lady of fortune, who abandons her legitimate children in order to lead a luxurious life. When her first lover, a jeweller, is murdered, she finds herself the owner of a great number of jewels. Af ter her intrigue with a prince, who also increases her riches, she resolves to quit Paris and to return to England. When she is at a loss how to dispose of her jewels and how to send money to London, she makes the acquaintance of an honest Dutch merchant, who takes her to a Jew. Roxana's first meeting with the latter is described in the vivid way peculiar to Defoe: "As soon as the Jew saw the jewels, he falls a jabbering, in Dutch or Portuguese, to the merchant; and I could presently perceive that they were in some great surprise, both of them; the Jew held up his hands, looked at me with some horror, then talked Dutch again, and put himself into a thousand shapes, twisting his body, and wringing up his face this way and that way in his discourse; stamping with his feet, and throwing abroad his hands, as if he was not in a rage only, but in a mere fury. Then he would turn and give a look at me like the devil. I thought I never saw anything so frightful in my life." 2) The Jew, seeing that the jewels represent a great value, pretends to buy them, but tries to prevail upon the merchant to join him in his design of robbing the lady. The Dutchman promises to comply with his wish, but when the villain has gone, he informs Roxana
1) Margoliouth, op. cit. II, p. 73.
2) The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniël De Foe, vol. IV, p. 97. The above-quoted passage is a striking example of the grimaces and gesticulations which often characterize the Jew in literature when he is excited. Isaac of York in Scott's Ivanhoe (1819) also "twisted himself" when in his heart there was a struggle between avarice and gratitude towards the Palmer, who had saved his life (Chapter VI). It is not impossible that Scott, when delineating Isaac, allowed himself to be influenced by the description which Defoe gives of the Jew in Roxana.



of the Jew's intentions, provides bills for her, and explains to her how to get out of his clutches. The lady takes his advice, and succeeds in escaping from the man of whom she afterwards declared that she had such a frightful idea of his face, "that Satan himself could not counterfeit a worse." x) When Roxana is staying at Rotterdam she gets a letter from the Dutch merchant informing her that the Jew had found out whose mistress she had been, that the prince's servants had beaten the Jew and had cut off both his ears, and that he had kept on threatening the merchant to prosecute him for being accessary to the murder of the jeweller. In consequence of this the Jew had been sent to the Conciergerie, but on his release he had threatened to assassinate the Dutchman, which had determined the latter to escape to Holland. Later on Roxana learns that the Jew had been concerned in an attempt to rob a rich banker at Paris, and that he had fled nobody knew whither.
In the preface to Roxana Defoe assures us that the foundation of this novel is "laid in truth of fact", and that the work is not a story, but a history. We know now that this was a mere trick of Defoe's to delude his readers. So there is reason to assume that he never saw such an inhuman individual as this Jew, whose cupidity rendered him capable of robbery, perjury, extortion and murder. His name is not mentioned, but he is mostly designated by unambiguous phrases as: that cursed Jew, the villam, the brute, the impudent fellow, the malicious Jew, that rogue the Jew, that devilish fellow, a rogue who will stick at nothing, that dog of a Jew, that ugly rogue, and that traitor the Jew. It need hardly be said that this repulsive figure is in no respect a study of Jewish character or nature. What actuated Defoe to label such a figure without any mitigating element a Jew, is difficult to imagine. As a matter of fact, much that is enigmatical in this extraordinary man has not been elucidated yet. Monetary difficulties — in 1692 he became a bankrupt2) with a deficit of about seventeen thousand pounds, and later on he probably lived beyond his income — may have brought him into contact with Jewish money-lenders. If literary influence might also be thought of,
*) The Works of Daniël De Foe, IV, p. 189.
n The Cambridge History of English Literature, IX, p. 7.



Marlowe's BarabbasJ), with whom we can best compare the Jew in Roxana, would undoubtedly have first claim.
In The Memoirs of Captain George Carleton (1726) Defoe introducés a few remarks about the Jews in connection with financial matters. When giving an account of the career of the Earl of Peterborough, who borrowed a hundred thousand pounds from a Spanish Jew, called Curtisos2), for military purposes, he observes: "The Jews, in whatever part of the world, are a people industrious in the increasing of mammon; and being accustomed to the universal methods of gain, are always esteemed best qualified for any undertaking where that bears a probability of being a perquisite.... on any likely appearence of great advantage, it is in the nature as well as practice of that race, strenuously to assist one another, and that with the utmost confidence and prodigious alacrity." 3) That borrowing money from Jews was not considered a very creditable affair in those days appears from the way in which Defoe excuses Peterborough's transaction: "though the earl took money of the Jews, it was not for his own, but public use." 4) The same book contains other more or less unfriendly references to the Jews. On p. 311 Captain Carleton says: "Under this sort of uncertain settlement I remained with the patience of a Jew, though not with Judaical absurdity, a faithful adherer to my expectation," and in his eulogy on the town of Valencia he remarks: "it is a common saying among the Spaniards that the pleasures of Valencia would make a Jew forget Jerusalem." ®)
The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, commonly called Mother Ross (1740)6) thrice makes mention of Jews who follow the army to purchase pillage. 7)
*) Marlowe, The Jew of Malta (1588).
2) This is not a fictitious person. Don José Cortissos (1656—1742) was a Spanish army contractor who saved the English forces in Spain from starvation in the year 1705. He never obtained full payment for his services, however, and died in poverty (Jewish Ene. IV, p. 29).
®) The Works of Defoe, II, p. 314.
4) ibid., p. 314.
5) ibid., p. 346.
6) This novel is included among Defoe's works in the edition of 1855, but does not occur on Wiiliam Lee's list of Defoe's writings (William Lee, op. cit., pp. XXVII—LV).
') The Works of Defoe, IV, pp. 392, 402, 433.



We now come to Jonathan Swift (1667—1731), Defoe's great rival and contemporary. From this master of irony and sarcasm we do not expect many pleasant words for the Jews. The Examiner (a Tory weekly) for April 12, lyn contains a paper written by Swift against the dissenters, in which he complains that the latter boldly entered into a league with Papists and a Popish prince to destroy the Church of England, and asks: "What if the Jews should multiply, and become a formidable party among us? Would the dissenters join in alliance with them likewise, because they agree already in some general principles, and because the Jews are allowed to be a stiffnecked and rebellious people?" x)
In A Complete Refutation of the Falsehoods alleged against Erasmus Lewis, Esq. 2) (1713) Swift relates the case of Mr. Henry Levi, alias Lewis, probably a German Jew, who had calumniated Erasmus Lewis, Swift's intimate friend. In this tract he speaks of "the foolish and malicious invention of the said Levi", and of his "low intellectuals .
To another pamphlet called The Swearer's Bank; or, Parliamentary Security for establishing a new Bank in England (1720), a satire on a proposal to found a National Bank in Dublin to assist small tradesmen, Swift subjoins the following ironical postcript: "The Jews of Rotterdam have offered to farm the revenues of Dublin at twenty thousand pounds per annum. Several eminent Quakers are also willing to take them at that rent; but the undertaker has rejected their proposals, being resolved to deal with none but Christians." 3)
In the famous Drapier's Letters (Letter V, I724) Swift compares his own condition with that of a Jew at Madrid, who, having been condemned to be burnt on account of his religion, was followed to the stake by a number of boys who, fearing "that they might lose their sport if he should happen to recant, would often clap him on the back,
1) The Works of Jonathan Swift, edited by Sir Walter Scott, Second Edition, London 1883, vol. III, p. 444. Swift mentions in the above passage characteristics of the Jews of the Old Testament. Cf. Exodus XXXIII, 3: "for thou art a stiffnecked people".
2) The Works of Swift, IV, pp. 132—140.
s) ibid., p. 290.



and cry: 'Sta firme, Moyse: Moses, continue steadfast'." 1) In Reasons for repealing the Sacramental Test in Favour of the Catholics (1733) Swift uses the expression: Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics. 2) This phrase was used for the first time in 1548 in the Book of Common Prayer, in the Collects for Good Friday. Afterwards the expression, or sometimes part of it, was much abused by dramatists, essayists and poets. I am able to supply quite a number of examples 3), which are all of them worth printing here, as they illustrate the more or less unfriendly feelings entertained towards the Jews in the period we are dealing with. Mamon in Iacke Drum's Entertainment (1601) calls out, when one of his ships has been sunk: "Villains, Rogues, Jews, Turkes, Infidels! my nose will rot off with grief."4) Granville is his Jew of Venice (1701), which is a reworking of The Merchant of Venice, makes Gratiano say in Act II, sc. 1:
Jew, Turk and Christian differ but in creed;
In ways of wickedness they're all agreed.
In his prologue to Foote's The Englishman in Paris Macklin changes the order for the sake of the rhyme:
To begin then with critics: — 'Tis their capital bliss,
Than to laugh — don 't you find it more pleasing to hiss ?
In this all agree: — Jews! Infidels! Turks!
I grant it, sweet sir, — if you mean at your works. 5)
Swift, in his satire On Dr. Rundie, Bishop of Derry (1734) also changes the order on account of the rhyme:
Make Rundie bishop! fie for shame!
An Arian to usurp the name!
A bishop in the isle of saints!
How will his brethren make complaints!
Yet, were he Heathen, Turk or Jew:
What is there in it strange or new? 6)
*) The Works of Swift, VI, p. 479.
2) ibid., VII, p. 422.
3) See also pp. 53, S4.
4) Quoted from Cardozo's synopsis of the play (J. L. Cardozo, The Contemporary Jew in the E.izabethan Drama, Amsterdam, 1925, p. 186).
6) The third line seems to be an echo of the above-quoted lines of Granville's play.
e) The Works of Swift, XII, p. 433.



We find a variant of the same expression in Smollett's Reproofl) (1747), a satire in the heroic couplet, in which the author lashes the vices of the age. It is a dialogue between a poet and his friend. The latter upbraids the former with "having exposed his private counsel to the town", to which the poet replies that he had printed it for public use. The conversation then continues as follows:
Friend. Yes, season'd with your own remarks between, Inflam'd with so much virulence of spleen,
That the mild town (to give the dev'1 his due) Ascrib'd the whole performance to a Jew.
Poet. Jew's, Turk's, or Pagan's, hallowed be the mouth, That teems with moral zeal and dauntless truth! Prove that my partial strain adopts one lie, No penitent more mortify'd than I.
The influence of the phrase in question is also to be noted in the following poem:
The Pope's the Whore of Babyion,
The Turk he is a Jew;
The Christian is an infidel That sitteth in a pew.
These lines occur in a letter written by Pope 2) and addressed to Swift, in which the former complains of the circumstance that his name is as bad as Swift's, and hated by all bad people. To illustrate this he quotes the above poem, which had been sent to him.
In The World of Oct. 25, 1753 3), Edward Moore (1712—1757) prints a letter (probably a fictitious one) from I. M., who wishes the author to recommend to all clergymen to omit in their sermons the petition for Jews, Turks and Infidels, for as the Jews, since a late act of parliament, are justly detested by the whole nation; and as it is shrewdly suspected that a
1) The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias SmoUett, London, 1824, vol. VI, pp. 258—266.
2) The Works of Swift, XVII, p. 10.
3) James Ferguson, The British Essayists, London 1819» vol. XXVI, p. 233-



bill is now in agitation for naturalizing the Turks, wise men are of opinion that it is no business of ours to be continually recommending such people in our prayers."
George Colman (1733—1794) and Bonnell Thornton (1724— 1768) published, in The Connoisseur of Febr. 7, 17541), a letter from "an eminent Jew", who complains of the fact that the famous painters have left hardly anything behind them but Holy Families, Dead Christs, and Madonnas, and urges the artists to paint, "as the English are taught to pray, for all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics." There is every reason to believe that Colman and Thornton concocted this letter themselves, for, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, they were very ill-disposed towards the Jews. Moreover it was a common practice of the eighteenth century essayist to introducé a fictitious letter into his paper with the obvious intention of diverting the attention from himself.
In Richard Cumberland's Story of Ned Drowsy (1785) Parson Beetle says to Mr. Abrahams: . if hereafter in the execution of my duty I am led to speak with rigour of your stiffnecked generation, I shall make a mental exception in your favour, and recommend you in my prayers for all Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics, by a separate ejaculation in your behalf." 2) This ambiguous compliment is characteristic of the way in which Cumberland (1732—1811), one of the literary champions of the Jews in England, advocated their cause. 3)
The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob (1785), an anonymous two-act farce, also contains a reminiscence of the phrase we are illustrating. A widow asks Mr. Israël, her daughter's guardian: . would you make her a Jewess?" The answer is: "A Turk, an Infidel, anything rather than the immoral Christian you would make her." 4)
We shall now continue our enumeration of Swift's references to the Jews. Another disparaging one is found in the poem: On the Words Brother Protestants and Fellow Christians (1733):
') The British Essayists, vol. XXX, p. 10.
2) The Observer, No. 41 (The British Essayists, XXXVIII, p. 280).
3) See chapters IV and XIV.
*) Act. I, sc. 1.



And thus fanatic saints, though neither in Doctrine nor discipline our brethren,
Are brother Protestants and Christians,
As much as Hebrews and Philistines. 1)
God's Revenge against Punning (date unknown) sums up several judgments which Heaven has inflicted on whole nations. Amongst other things it also refers to a pestilence in England which swept away "five millions of Christian souls, besides women and Jews."2) The separate mentioning of the latter two classes of individuals evidently serves to express the author's contempt of them.
In A True and Faithful Narrative of what passed in London during the General Consternation of all Ranks and Degrees of Mankind on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last, a satire on one Mr. Whiston, who had prophesied that the world should be no more in a few days, Swift gives an ironical account of the situation in London during those days. As to 'Change Alley, he remarks: "there was little or nothing transacted; there were a multititude of sellers, but so few buyers, that one cannot affirm the stocks bore any certain price except among the Jews, who this day reaped great profit by their infidelity." 3)
It remains to say that Swift repeatedly employs phrases like: as rich as a Jew, richer than a Jew, rich as Jews, and as rich as fifty Jews.
The name of Alexander Pope (1688—1744) must also be mentioned in this chapter. To him we owe the following satire: "A Strange but True Relation how Mr. Edmund Curll, of Fleet Street, Stationer, out of an Extraordinary Desire of Lucre, went into 'Change Alley, and was converted from the Christian Religion by certain Eminent Jews; and how he was circnmcised and initiated into their Mysteries."4) Edmund Curll (1675—1747) was a notorious London bookseller who chiefly
1) The Works of Swift, XII, p. 417.
2) ibid., XIII, p. 251.
s) ibid., p. 266.
4) ibid., pp. 223—229.



lived on the publication of obscene literature and piratical editions. Pope, who quarrelled with him for having issued Court Poems, by a Lady of Quality, and having ascribed them to "the laudible translator of Homer", pilloried him in three pamphlets and in The Dunciad (1728). We are only interested here in one of the three tracts, namely the above-mentioned, as it is a fierce and shameless libel on the Jews. Af ter a digression on avarice the reader is informed that Mr. Curll, having learned what immense sums the Jews had won by bubbles, had resolved to quit his shop for 'Change Alley. There he had met some Jews (John Mendez, Joshua Pereira, and Sir Gideon Lopez), who had promised him that immediately after his conversion to their persuasion he should become as rich as a Jew, and that, if he would poison his wife and give up his griskin, he should marry the rich Ben Meymon's daughter. We are further told that he had been seized by six Jews, and that he had been circumcised too much by the highpriest (which by the levitical law was worse than not being circumcised at all), in consequence of which he had been thrown out of the synagogue. The scurrilous satire, of which the disgusting details do not deserve any further consideration, ends with thé following prayer: "Keep us, we beseech thee, from the hands of such barbarous and cruel Jews, who albeit they abhor the blood of black-puddings, yet thirst they vehemently after the blood of white ones. And that we may avoid such like calamities, may all good and well disposed Christians be warned by this unhappy wretch's woful example, to abominate the heinous sin of avarice." It is perhaps superfluous to say that the account of Curll's conversion to the Jewish religion is fictitious.
Another pamphlet, called A Wonderful Prophecy, which is also ascribed to Pope, and which seems to have been written to ridicule the pretended prophecies of those days, contains the following unpalatable prediction: "The time is at hand, when the freethinkers of Great Britain shall be converted to Judaism; and the sultan shall receive the foreskins of Toland and Collins [authors of several books in favour of infidelity] in a box of gold." *)
*) The Works of Swift, XIII, p. 244.



Pope also mentions the Jews in The Rape of the Lock (1711). In Canto II, when describing the beautiful Belinda, he says:
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Henry Fielding's (1707—1754) prose referencesx) to the Jews are as uncomplimentary as those of Defoe, Swift and Pope. In The History of Joseph Andrews (1742) Parson Adams says (after the adventure at an aleliouse described in Book II, chapter XVI) "that he was glad to find some Christians left in the kingdom, for that he almost began to suspect that he was sojourning in a country inhabited only by Jews and Turks". As neither Jews nor Turks occur in the book, the expression must be taken as a term of abuse in the sense of "villains and scoundrels".
In the pamphlet An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers (1751) Fielding mentions the Jews as receivers of stolen goods. Landa 2) therefore makes a mistake when he remarks that General Burgoyne in The Heiress (Drury Lane, Jan. 14, 1786) was the first to mention the Jews as such. 3) In the above tract there is a passage which seems to have been overlooked by critics, and which is of more than passing interest, as, in my opinion, it may give us a clue to the origin of Fagin, the malicious and cowardly Jew in Dickens's Oliver Twist (1837)4), who employs a gang of thieves, chiefly boys, for the gratification of his covetousness. The passage I have in view runs as follows: "Among the Jews, who live in a certain place in the city, there have been, and perhaps still are, some notable dealers this way, who, in an almost public manner, have carried on a trade for many years with Rotter-
1) Fielding's repulsive stage Jew in Miss Lucy in Town (1742) will be discussed in chapter VII.
2) M. J. Landa, The Jew in Drama, London, 1926, p. 123.
3) Even if Landa's observation only refers to the drama, he is greatly mistaken, for the Jewish fence occurs in this form of literature as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. In Daborne's A Christian turned Turk (1610) Benwash, a Jew, is also a receiver of stolen goods. Cf. Michelson, op. cit., p. 91.
4) Oliver Twist, ch. VIII ff.



dam, wnere tney nave tneir warenouses ana iactors, ana wmmer they export their goods with prodigious profit, and as prodigious impunity. And all this appeared very plainly last winter in the examination of one Cadosa, a Jew, in the presence of the late excellent duke of Richmond, and many other noblemen and magistrates." x) Landa says that Fagin had no living model, but adds that he is generally supposed to be based on Ikey Solomons, a receiver of stolen goods2), and offers the theory that the character of Barney Fence, a Jew, one of the minor figures of W. T. Moncrieff's Van Diemen's Land (Surrey, Febr. 10, 1830) must have been present to Dickens's mind, when in 1837 he began to write Oliver Twist.3) Landa's conjecture is highly plausible, but I would add to it that the above-quoted passage of Fielding's treatise on the increase of robbers, with which Dickens must have been familiar, as he was greatly influenced by the works of Smollett and Fielding, may first have suggested to him the idea of portraying a Jewish fence. In the fifth chapter of the above-mentioned tract, which deals with the punishment of receivers of stolen goods, there are details which strongly remind one of Oliver Twist. Fielding speaks about shop-lifting, burglary and picking pockets, matters that are the order of the day in Dickens's book. Sometimes the terminology is slightly different: in the tract "petit larceny" is used, in the novel "petty larceny . Fielding also puts the case of a pickpocket who steals several handkerchiefs. Readers of Oliver Twist will at once remember that Fagin's young associates were also very clever hands at stealing handkerchiefs, and that Oliver had to piek the marks out of them. 4) The spot denoted in Fielding's treatise as "a certain place in the city", is called Field Lane in Dickens s novel, and is described as follows: "in its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pickpockets. Fielding next mentions gold watches, silver, gold, and diamonds,
!) The Works of Henry Fielding, London, 1808, vol. XII, p. 363■ 2) He was arrested in 1830 and sentenced to seven years transportation (Landa, op. cit., p. 160).
a) Landa, op. cit., p. 160—162.
*) Oliver Twist, ch. X.



as articles offered for sale to clandestine dealers "by a ragged fellow or wench". Fagin's male and female pupils also provide him, amongst other things, with gold watches and articles of jewellery.
Another argument which seems to support my theory is a sentence occurring in a letter which Dickens wrote on July io, 1863, to a Jewish lady who had remonstrated with him on the character we are discussing: "Fagin, in Oliver Twist, is a Jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew." x) This may be looked upon as an exaggerated picture of the facts recorded by Fielding: "Among the Jews, who live in a certain place in the city, there have been, and perhaps still are, some notable dealers this way, etc. It is somewhat curious that Fielding and Dickens, though probably referring to about the same period — the former to the middle of the eighteenth century, the latter to the close of it or also to the middle 2) — hold such different views as to the number of Jewish fences. Fielding, who was a stipendiary magistrate and had ample opportunity to observe crime, cannot be expected to have misrepresented the facts. Even apart from the circumstance that Dickens's story may have referred to a somewhat later period than Fielding's treatise, in which Jewish criminality was greater than bef ore 3), it is highly probable that the writer of Oliver Twist exaggerated, perhaps in order to have an excuse for Fagin. That Dickens presumably overstated the case a little may also be gathered from a passage in the letter which the above-mentioned lady wrote to the author in reply to the one just referred to: "I cannot dispute the fact that at the time to which Oliver Twist refers there
!) The entire letter is quoted by D. Philipson, The Jew in English Fiction, New York, 1918, fourth edition, p. 104.
2) Fitzgerald, when making some observations on Fagin and his gang, says: "This was the old system of Jonathan Wild's days." (P. Fitzgerald, The Life of Charles Dickens, London, 1905, II, p. 165). He was a notorious English thief who was hanged at Tyburn in 1725.
s) Towards the end of the century the criminality of the Jews seems to have been greatest. The Jewish Encyclopaedia, when referring to this period,
says: " the bulk of the Ashkenazic community consisted of petty traders
and hawkers, not to speak of the followers of more disreputable occupations" (vol. VIII. p. 161).
3



were some Jew receivers of stolen goods." 1) If Dickens were right, English literature would perhaps record more instances of Jewish fences 2), and especially the dramatist would probably not have let slip such a rare opportunity of adding a welcome figure to his stock-in-trade, in the shape of a Jewish criminal.
To return to our theory, the following passage 3) in Fielding's tract is also significant: "Why should not the receiving stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen, be made an original offence? by which means the thief, who is often a paltry offender in comparison of the receiver, and sometimes his pupil might, in little felonies, be made a witness against him .... Something ought to be done, to put an end to the present practice, of which I daily see the most pernicious consequences; many of the younger thieves appearing plainly to be taught, encouraged, and employed by the receivers." The last sentence would very well fit into a preface to Oliver Twist, for it exactly sums up the relation between Fagin and his pupils.
For the above reasons I think it more than probable that Fielding's forgotten pamphlet is largely responsible for the conception of Fagin and his surroundings. This does not exclude the possibility of Landa's theory, however. Dickens's original idea may have assumed a more definite shape when he heard of Ikey Solomons and Barney Fence. That Dickens was influenced by the röle of the latter in Van Dieman's Land seems almost certain, for in Oliver Twist there is also a character named Barney, the villainous Jew4) who waits upon the customers in The Three Cripples, an inn frequented by Fagin and his confederates. He is only a minor figure, but obtrudes himself too much upon the reader to be overlooked. It is therefore astonishing that Landa does not mention Dickens's
!) This letter is also quoted by Philipson, op. cit., p. 105.
2) In one of Maria Edgeworth's Moral Tales (1801), in a story called The Good Aunt there is also a Jewish receiver of stolen goods, Aaron Carat, a jeweller. The youthful hero of this tale is also a pleasant boy named Oliver, who, just as in Dickens's novel, ultimately causes the exposure of the Jew. Though the circumstances in the two stories are quite different, it is not impossible that Dickens also took a hint from Miss Edgeworth.
8) The Works of Fielding, op. cit., vol. XII, p. 368, 369.
4) Oliver Twist, ch. XXII.



Barney, which would have been a strong argument, if not the strongest, in favour of his theory that Barney Fence influenced Fagin. The names Ikey and Solomon also occur in one of Dickens's works, namely in A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle, one of the Sketches by Boz (1836). Ikey is the factotum of Solomon Jacobs, a bailiff, who keeps a sponging-house, and whose Christian name and surname are also of Jewish origin. The mentioning of these names by Dickens — once they are even used in the same sentence1) — which would also support Landa's theory, has, strangely enough, also been overlooked by the latter. Dickens's use of the extremely uncommon names Barney and Ikey allows of only one explanation, that he had some knowledge of Barney Fence, the stage Jew of Van Diemen's Land, and Ikey Solomons, the notorious receiver of stolen goods. 2)
After this long digression we return to Fielding's attitude towards the Jews. In his satire A Journey from this world to the next (1743) he makes' Julian the Apostate undertake a pilgrimage to the earth in the character of an avaricious Jew named Balthazar. 3) In order to sell some jewels the miser travels from Alexandria to Constantinople. With a view to reducing his expenses he has disguised himself as a beggar. We learn that he amasses an immense fortune by adulterating wine, by withholding from others the money that is due to them, by imposing upon his neighbours and by stinting himself. His riches do not make him happy, however. He confesses that between his solicitude in contriving schemes to procure
') "Ikey was satisfied for his trouble, and the two friends soon found themselves on that side of Mr. Solomon Jacob's establishment, etc." (Sketches by Boz, pub. Chapman and Hall, p. 345).
2) The best known representatives of non- J ewish receivers of stolen goods in English literature are Peachum and Locket in John Gay's famous Beggar's Opera (1728). In Oliver Twist there are a couple of passages, or rather details, which are reminiscent of this play. The episode in which Fagin revels in the sight of the articles stolen by his pupils (ch. IX) reminds us of the scene in which Peachum enumerates the objects pilfered by his gang: watches, snuffboxes, handkerchiefs, etc. (Act I, sc. 3). In the same chapter Fagin, after inspecting the handkerchiefs produced by Bates, says to the latter: "so the marks shall be picked out with a needie", which may be an echo of Peachum's order to his wife to "rip out the coronets and marks of these dozen of cambric handkerchiefs" (Act I, sc. 4).
*) The Works of Fielding, op. cit., III, p. 56—6o.



money, and his great anxiety to preserve it, he never has one moment of ease while awake, nor when asleep. In the same chapter mention is made of a Roman Jew "who was a great lover of Falernian wine, and indulged himself very freely with it." Fielding's posthumous work The Journal of a voyage to Lissabon (1755) has a reference to a celebrated Jew who "when filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to teil his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours." *)
*■) The Works of Fielding, op. cit., XIII, p. 258.



CHAPTER II
SMOLLETT
Of all the eighteenth century novelists none perhaps paid so much attention to the Jews as Tobias Smollett (1721—1771), Dickens's great predecessor. Fortunately this attention was not all of the kind described in the preceding chapter, in which we saw in what black colours the Jew is invariably painted by the early eighteenth century prose-writers.
Smollett mentions the Jews for the first time in Reproof (1747), as we saw in the foregoing section. In The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) he introducés two Jews, both of them unlovable and despicable characters. The first of these is Isaac Rapine, "the money-broker in the Minories," 1) as he is called, who travels from Newcastle to London in the company of Roderick and Strap. 2) A girl about town, Jenny Ramper, who is sitting in the same coach, addresses the following uncomplimentary words to him, after Roderick and his servant have entered the vehicle: ... let us be sociable and merry — what do you say, Isaac ? Is not this a good motion, you doting rogue? Speak, you old cent-per-cent-fornicator. What desperate debt are you thinking of? What mortgage are you planning? Well, Isaac, positively you shall never gain my favour till you turn over a new leaf, grow honest and live like a gentleman. In the mean time, give me a kiss, you old fumbler." In the inn where the travellers spend the night together, the old usurer falls into the snare which Jenny lays for him. The following morning she accuses him of ha ving tried to seduce her and claims damages from him. The Jew pays five pounds for fear of being prosecuted for a rape.
The minute description which we get of Isaac Rapine's outward appearance bears some resemblance to the details which Scott 3) gives when describing that of Isaac of York
*) The Minories is a thoroughfare in the Jewish quarter of London.
2) Roderick Random, ch. XI.
3) I found another indication which seems to prove that Scott was influenced by Roderick Random. In ch. XLII a lieutenant remarks: ". . . . so



in Ivanhoe (1819). Smollett's description, for instance, ends with: . his whole figure was an emblem of winter, famine and avarice," *) while Scott finishes his portrait by remarking that "had there been painters in those days .... the Jew .... would have formed no bad emblematical personification of the winter season." 2)
Just like Defoe, Smollett tries to give an appearance of truth to his narrative, for he observes in the preface to Roderick Random: "Every intelligent reader will, at first sight, perceive I have not deviated from nature in the facts, which are all true in the main, although the circumstances are altered and disguised, to avoid personal satire." This statement is far too vague to assume that Isaac Rapine, who plays such a shameful part in Smollett's first novel, was painted from nature. It is much more probable that the author had allowed himself to be influenced by the licentious stage Jews of Cibber and Fielding. 3) The Jew's conspicuous surname — a so-called speaking name, of which many instances are to be found in Smollett's novels — also proves that in this respect the writer did not trouble himself in the least about what he called "nature".
The other Jewish figure in Roderick Random is not a very amiable character either. He appears in chapter Lil, in which Smollett describes his hero's luck at the gaming-table. When Roderick prepares to retire with his booty, a Jew whose name is not mentioned, insinuates that the young man's luck was more due to art than to fortune. Roderick, who has played fair, threatens to prosecute the Jew for defamation, and forces him to retract what he has said and to ask pardon before the whole assembly.
In The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) we make the acquaintance of another profligate Jew, a Rotterdam merchant. This time Smollett does not deem him worthy of a name, but
that I defy the Pope, the Devil and the Pretender; and hope to be saved as well as another." In Scott's Surgeon's Daughter (1827) we read in ch. II:
. . . they (the Jews) hate the Pope, the Devil and the Pretender as much as any honest man among ourselves."
1) Roderick Random, ch. XI. -
2) Ivanhoe, ch. V.
») See ch. VII.



styles him the Hebrew, the Levite 1), the Jew or the Israelite. During a conversation in the diligence, which is on the way to Ghent, Jolter, Peregrine's tutor, compares his fellow-traveller the Jew with a ball of horse dung and remarks "that the judgement of God was still manifest upon their whole race, not only in their being in the state of exiles from their native land, but also in the spite of their hearts and pravity of their dispositions, which demonstrate them to be genuine offspring of those who crucified the Saviour of the world." 2) In the same diligence there are a priest and a physician. When the latter tries to piek a quarrel with the former by ridiculing the doctrine of the immaculate conception, the indignant priest retorts: "You are an abominable — I will not call thee heretic, for thou art worse (if possible) than a Jew." In an inn where the travellers have put up for the night, a French courtesan resolves to practise her charms upon the Jew, who had "gazed upon her with a most libidinous stare, and unbended his aspect into a grin that was truly Israelitish." 3) The girl succeeds in decoying the Jew. But Pellet, his rival, employs a donkey to play a trick upon the Jew. The latter wants to run away at the noise, but seeing his passage blocked up, hides under the bed, from which place he is soon pulled by the heels and is exposed to the ridicule of all the other guests of the inn. This episode is largely a reiteration of the one we noted in Roderick Random. That in his first two novels Smollett addresses some very unkind words to the Jews, and twice makes one of this race the hero of a disgraceful intrigue with a lady of pleasure and holds him up to derision, proves that in the early part
M In Peregrine Pickle Smollett thrice uses the word Levite as a more or less contemptuous name for a Jew (twice in ch. 53, and once in ch. 56). This meaning is not mentioned by the N. E. D. As the Jew to whom we are referring is a merchant, the name Levite cannot possibly be taken here as a somewhat contemptuous term for a clergyman or a domestic chaplain, which meaning it sometimes has in seventeenth century literatnre. Of the latter connotation the N. E. D. gives a few examples. I also found one in Congreve's Doublé Dealer (1693). In Act V, sc. 3, Maskwell speaks of "his little Levite", and obviously refers to Saygrace, Lord Xouchwood's private chaplain, who assists Maskwell in an intrigue with Lady Touchwood.
2) Peregrine Pickle, ch. LUI.
s) ibid., ch. LVI.



of his career as a novelist the author shares the time-honoured views of his predecessors and contemporaries.
Among the many characters of Peregrine Pickle there is also a Jewess.a) We learn that the hero of the story, thinking that he was chasing his beloved Emilia and her conductor, had all the time been pursuing the only daughter of a rich Jew and her attendant. The latter appeared to be nobody else but the Jew's apprentice, who, after having converted her to Christianity, had married her secretly. The old Jew, discovering this, had contrived a scheme to separate them for ever, but the young couple, having been informed of this just in time, had fled from England to France. This story of the Jewess who elopes with a Christian is a more or less favourite theme in English literature. The episode of Jessica and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice, that of the Jew's daughter in Colman and Thornton's essay on hangers-on 2), and that of Miss Labradore 3) and Coquin in Andrews' Dissipation (1781) are cases in point.
This is probably the first time that a Jewess figures in eighteenth century literature. With the Jew's daughter in the essay just mentioned, the Jew's widow in Sterne's Tristam Shandy (1759—1765), Judith in the above comedy by Andrews, and Dorcas in Cumberland's Jew (1794) the number of instances in the literature of the period under re view is perhaps exhausted. When moreover we consider that all the cases mentioned, with the exception of Miss Labradore, refer to unimportant episodes or minor characters which deserve hardly any notice, we may say that scant attention was paid to the Jewess by the eighteenth century novelist and dramatist. The primary reason of this conspicuous neglect is in all likelihood the peculiar character of the Jew in English literature. During the time when prejudice reigns supreme, he is, broadly speaking, either a crafty usurer or an arrant fooi. As a woman could hardly serve either of these purposes, there was no place for the Jewess in the literature of the age. Another obvious reason is that the Jewess did not come to the fore in public life. As far as novelists and dramatists were concerned, personal contact with the Jewish
J) Peregrine Pickle, ch. LXXIX.
2) See p. 63.
s) See ch. XII.



people was perhaps only a consequence of pecuniary difficulties, in the obviation of which the Jewess did not take a part.
In The Adventures of Count Fathom (1753), Smollett deviates entirely from his former portrayal of the Jews by giving us a picture of a benevolent and munificent Israelite, a rare phenomenon in those days. It may be called a strange coincidence that the year which witnessed the introduction of the so-called Jew Bill was also to record the first pleasant words for the Jews in English literature. Or was it not so strange after all? Before attempting to answer this question we shall first give a synopsis of the novel as far as the Jew is concerned.
Melvil, Fathom's friend, is in want of money, and after having applied in vain to fifteen Christian usurers in London, he calls out in despair: "Since we have nothing to expect from the favour of Christians, let us have recourse to the descendants of Judah. Though they lay under the general reproach of nations, as a people dead to virtue and benevolence, and wholly devoted to avarice, fraud and extortion, the most savage of their tribe cannot treat me with more barbarity than I have experienced among those who are the authors of their reproach." x) They betake themselves to the house of a rich Spanish Jew, whose forbidding face and discordant voice frightens them at first, but whose kind heart is soon moved by Melvil's distress. After having made some inquiries Joshua Manasseh, as the Jew is called, advances him five hundred pounds, refusing "to take one farthing by way of premium and contenting himself with the slender security of a personal bond." Later on Manasseh, or the honest Hebrew, as he is often styled, shows his benevolence and munificence over and over again. He forwards an important letter to Melvil and repeatedly places his own coach at the Count's disposal. To Don Diego, a nobleman who is in search of his lost daughter, he advances a large sum without accepting neither "bond, note or receipt". Don Diego cannot help wondering at this noble behaviour, "so little to be expected from any merchant, much less from a Jewish broker." 2) When Melvil marries, it is "the benevolent Hebrew" who provides a temporary dwelling
') Count Fathom, ch. XLVII. 2) ibid., ch. LXVI.



Smollett falls from one extreme into the other. If Isaac is an impossible figure, Josuah is certainly not true to life either.
We are now confronted by the interesting task of tracing the origin of the generous Jew whom Sir Walter Scott calls "the first candid attempt to do justice to a calumniated race." x) This statement, followed by the assertion that Joshua is the prototype of Sheva — both of which remarks are reiterated and emphasized by Landa 2) — is, to the best of my knowledge, all that criticism has ever written about the Jew in Count Fathom.
When endeavouring to find out what it was that induced Smollett to adopt quite a different attitude towards the Jews in the year 1753 we think in the first place of political influence. In order to make this clear an account of the events of the years 1745 and 1753 will be indispensable. It is also advisable with a view to other parts of this work; it will convince us at the same time that the stirring middle decades of the eighteenth century were also eventful years for the Jews. When in 1745 the Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, had landed in Scotland, had taken possession of Edinburgh, and was marching towards London, thus producing a general panic, the Jews showed their patriotism in several ways. The lower classes enlisted in the City Militia and willingly bore arms in defence of the country; their more prosperous co-religionists formed associations with the same object; while those persons whose situations made them more useful in their own professions and callings, did their utmost to promote all that was considered serviceable to the Government. Sampson Gideon, the great financier and the leading member of the London community, rendered an inestimable service to his country by raising a considerable loan, one fourth of which was at once taken up by Jews, while the run on the Bank of England was stopped by the confidence aroused at the sight of the continuous supply of money poured in by Jewish merchants. As soon as it was known that the Government wanted ships to prevent the enemy from landing, two other members of the
1) Scott, Lives of the Novelists, p. 84.
2) Landa, op. cit., p. 138. As usual, this author does not mention his source here.



Jewish community spontaneously placed two vessels which lay ready in the Thames at the disposal of the State. x) All these important services voluntarily rendered at such a critical moment were not to pass unrecognized. In 1753 the Whig Government made bold to introducé a bill into Parliament to naturalize all foreign Jews. The Tories, however, taking advantage of popular prejudices, succeeded in raising a storm of hostility against the Jews. Thomas Herring (1693—1757)» the generous and tolerant archbishop of Canterbury, of whom we read that he befriended the Jews 2), feared that it might result in a general slaughter. He writes: "Such an abominable spirit is raging against them, that I expect in a little time they will be massacred." 3) It is interesing to hear some of the arguments brought forward in the House of Commons against the bill. They bear testimony to a naïve credulity and are characteristic of the spirit which prevailed among the populace at that time; they prove that the Age of Enlightenment had not yet dawned in England in the year 1753. It was argued among other things that the naturalization would deluge the country with brokers, usurers and beggars, that the rich Jews would purchase lands and the poorer Jews would oust the natives from their employment. The Jews would multiply to such an extent, would acquire so much wealth and consequently also power and influence, that their persons would be revered, their customs imitated. The proposed legislation would also be a direct contravention of the prophecy which declared that the Jews should be a scattered people without a country or a fixed habitation. The House was reminded that af ter four hundred and sixty years the Jews in Egypt had mustered six hundred thousand armed men, and that, according to the book of Esther, when they had gained the upper hand in the land of their sojourn, they had "put to death in two days seventy-six thousand of those whom they were pleased to call their enemies, without either judge or jury." The possibility
') Hyamson, op. cit., pp. 270, 271.
2) The Cambridge History of English Litevature, X, p. 362.
3) Maty's Review, I, 1782, p. 241- Cf. C. J. Abbey, The English Chureh and its Biskops, London, 1887, vol. II, p. 39.



of a repetition of this exploit in England was hinted at. x)
The cause of the Jews was defended by the bishops and nearly all the better educated of the clergy, also by merchants and manufacturers, who argued that the proposed measure would further English trade. The bill passed both houses in spite of the strong opposition, which, however, became so violent, that the following year it had to be repealed, after it had already received the royal assent.
To return to Smollett and political influence, which may be partly responsible for this novelist's fresh point of view respecting the Jews, we venture to offer the theory that the author, who was a Whig 2) himself, when a Whig government was going to introducé the bill in question, became convinced that he had wronged the Jews in his former books, and created a generous Jew in the novel he was engaged on. When we consider Smollett's character, which seems to have been a very noble 3) one, a change like that just described is all the easier to understand. The generous man will always be ready to atone for the wrong he has done once his eyes are opened.
The appellation which Smollett chooses for his Jew also seems to support the above theory. Manasseh is a name which the English Jews mention only with reverence. Manasseh (Menasseh) ben Israël (1604—1659) was a Portuguese Jew, who had fled from the Inquisition, had become a Rabbi at Amsterdam and had crossed over to England in 1655 to negotiate with Cromwell the re-admission of the Jews into
*) The above arguments are to be found in Hyamson, op. cit., pp. 274, 275. They have been given here in a condensed form.
2) Some years later a change seems to have taken place. After the publication of his Complete History of England (1758), Smollett wrote a letter to his friend Dr. Moore (quoted by Scott, Lives of the Novelists, p. 90) in which we read: "I have, as far as in me lay, adhered to truth, without espousing any faction, though I own I sat down to write with a warm side to those principles in which I was educated; but in the course of my enquiries, some of the Whig ministers turned out such a set of sordid knaves, that I could not help stigmatising them for their want of integrity and sentiment."
3) Dr. Moore says in this connection: "He was of a disposition so humane and generous, that he was ever ready to serve the unfortunate and on some occasions to assist them beyond what his circumstances could justify" (Quoted by Scott, op. cit., p. 105).



this country. Without a doubt his name was often mentioned again in the days of the naturalisation controversy. It would appear that Smollett, by selecting the above name, means to say something like this: Just as Manasseh ben Israël pleaded for the re-admission of the Jews into England, Joshua Manasseh will plead for the re-admission of the Jews into the hearts of the English. x)
In the second place Smollett's fresh standpoint with reference to the Jews should be attributed to literary influence. In 1747 Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715—1769), Richardson's imitator in Germany, who is well-known for his highly moral writings, had issued: Das Leben des swedischen Grafin G.***. Of this novel, into which some benevolent Jews are introduced, an English translation2) appeared in 1752 (the year before the publication of Count Fathom) under the title of The History of the Swedish Countess of Guildenstern. By C. F. Gellert, M. A Professor at the University of Leipsic.
Gellert may be called the pioneer of humanitarianism in Germany. "Voll reformatorischen Eifers", says Fritz Behrend, "will der Dichter der wichtigsten Lebensverhaltnisse umformen: für die Kinder, die Dienstboten, für die Juden, für die Verbrecher, für die Frauen, ja für die Nationen sollen neue befreiende, der Vernunft gemasze Grundsatze Kraft gewinnen." 3) In the above-mentioned novel the author describes the adventures of Count G., who in a war between Sweden and Poland is taken prisoner by the Russians, and is sent to Siberia. Here he saves the life of a Polish Jew who trades to Tobolsky. The Jew, whose name is not mentioned, has fallen from his horse, and is found by the Count nearly frozen to
1) The combination Joshua Manasseh was probably taken from the Old Testament. At any rate it is very curious that the two names occur in one and the same text (The Book of Joshua i : 12). That Smollett was influenced by the Bible and knew this book very well may also appear from the following. Jolter, Peregrine's tutor, asks the Jew to which of the tribes the Jew thought he (i. e. Jolter) belonged. The Jew answered: "To the tribe of Issachar" (Peregrine Pickle, ch. 53). The joke of course refers to Genesis 49 : 14, where it says, "Issachar is a strong ass."
2) In Holland a translation appeared in 1760 called Charlotta of de Gevallen eener Zweedsche Gvavinne. In the second edition (1774) title was changed into Het Leven van de Zweedsche Gravinne G.***.
3) Fritz Behrend, Gellerts Werke, Berlin, 1910, p. XXVI.



death. Out of gratitude the Jew pays a sum of money to the Governor to render the Count's life in Siberia more bearable. He also sells jewels for him to a member of his tribe, who, as he said, would not defraud the Count of a farthing. Moreover he is the means by which the Countess receives tidings from her husband. During the absence of the Polish Jew the prisoner is set at liberty, and another honest Jew, who has meanwhile directed the Count's monetary affairs, prepares everything for his departure. At Moscou the Count goes to a Jew who is to cash one of his cheques. When it appears that the money-lender cannot pay the whole amount, because his business is declining, some other Jews offer to procure the remainder within two months. The Count, however, starts at once in order to join his wife as soon as possible, whom he finds at Amsterdam at last. Here the Polish Jew visits the Count some time afterwards, when he is on business in Holland. He is described as a pious old man of a venerable appearance and of a kind, honest, unselfish and true-hearted character. When he is about to leave for Poland again in order to die near his wife — he has no children — hegivesasum of ten thousand Taler to the daughter of his host, which, after the Jew has departed, causes the following effusion from the Countess: "Der rechtschaffne Mann! Vielleicht würden viele von diesem Volke beszre Herzen haben, wenn wir sie nicht durch Verachtung und listige Gewalttatigkeiten noch mehr niedertrachtig und betrügerisch in ihren Handlungen machten und sie nicht oft durch unsere Aufführung nötigten, unsere Religion zu hassen." *)
There can be no doubt that Smollett was influenced by Gellert's epistolary novel. Both stories give a more or less sentimental picture of a benevolent Jewish merchant who is almost too generous, too unselfish to be true to life. Gellert's Jew is more entitled to being called a truthful portrait than Joshua Manasseh, because the former acts the benefactor to a person who has saved his life, whereas with the latter it is his noble heart that is the source of all his generous actions. There are also minor touches which point to the above-mentioned influence: both Jews deliver letters for the persons whom they
]) Fritz Behrend, Getterts Werke, II, p. 108. (I quote from a German edition, as the English translation is inaccessible at the moment).



befriend, and in both stories the figure ioooo is recorded in connection with a wedding-gift. 1)
Gellert probably also influenced Lessing, who in 1749, while still a student at the University of Wittenberg, wrote a comedy Die Juden, which was followed in 1779 by the well-known dramatic poem Nathan der Weise, another eloquent plea for religious tolerance. All three works teach the same moral. true humanity is a characteristic not confined to a particular people or a particular religion.
In his later works Smollett mentions the Jews again, but oddly enough, most of the references breathe a different spirit from that of Count Fathom. In The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762) an election scene is described, in which one Mr. Isaac Vanderpelft, "a stock-jobber of foreign extract, not without a mixture of Hebrew blood, immensely rich , cuts a foolish figure, when, after he has delivered a boastful speech which ends with the words: This is the solid basis and foundation upon which I stand", the barrel on which he is standing, gives way, and he disappears into it, to the great amusement of the audience. His rival, Mr. Quickset, also ha-
rangues the constituents, and says among other things 
we are no upstarts, nor voreigners, nor have we any Jewish blood in our veins." 2)
In Travels through France and Italy (1765) the author remarks, after having informed his readers that after a certain battle many Spanish soldiers had been found to be circumcised. "The Jews are the least of any people that I know addicted to a military life." 3) In his description of Nice4) he says.
" which being a free port, af fords an asylum to foreign
cheats and sharpers of every denomination. Here is likewise a pretty considerable number of Jews, who live together in a street appropriated for their use, which is shut up every night.
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (177°) > Smollett s masterpiece, affords an interesting example of the Jewish disguise used by a young man as a means to gain admission to his
1) Compare Count Fathom, ch. LXVI, and Gellerts Werke, II, p. 31 ■
2) Lancelot Greaves, ch. IX.
3) Travels through France and Italy, letter XIII.
4) ibid., letter XX.



sweetheart. Mr. Wilson, a strolling player, dressed as a Jew pedlar, succeeds in approaching the maid of Lydia Meiford, the young lady with whom he has fallen in love. Mr. Meiford, Lydia's brother, asks the girl what business she has with "that rascally Jew". x) Thomas Dibdin, who adapted a number of novels for the stage, also dramatized Humphry Clinker (Royal Circus, July 6, 1818). Another version was enacted at Sadler's Wells on March 17, 1828. In these adaptations Dibdin introduced Mordecai, a Jew, who lends his clothes for a disguise. This novelty, the invention of which is probably due to Smollett, was eagerly imitated by nineteenth century dramatists. 2)
There are a few more unkind references to the Jews in Humphry Clinker. Mr. Meiford, when giving his opinion of Mrs. Tabitha, writes: "Though she is a violent churchwoman of the most intolerant zeal, I believe in my conscience she would have no objection, at present, to treat on the score of matrimony with an anabaptist, quaker or Jew, and even ratify the treaty at the expense of her own conversion." 3) In the latter part of the book Mr. Bramble argues that poverty is no matter of reproach. "If poverty be a subject for reproach," he writes to Dr. Lewis, "it follows that wealth is the object of esteem and veneration. In that case, there are Jews and others in Amsterdam and London, enriched by usury, speculation, and different species of fraud and extortion, who are more estimable than the most virtuous and illustrious members of the community; an absurdity which no man in his sense will offer to maintain." 4)
If we had to account for Smollett's attitude towards the Jews in his later works, we should be tempted to say that,
x) Humphry Clinker (Tauchnitz edition), p. 36.
2) For examples see Landa, op. cit., pp. 148, 158. The practice of using the Jewish disguise at a masquerade occurs much earlier in English literature. In Richardson's Pamela (1741), the heroine of the story tells Lady Davers about a masquerade she had attended and mentions "a Jewish Rabbi" as one of the "odd appearances" which had glided by her (vol. II, letter 56). In Mrs. Cowley's The Belle's Strategem (Covent Garden, Febr. 22, 1780) we find another instance (see p. 169).
3) Humphry Clinker, p. 77.
4) ibid., p. 313.
4



after in 1754 the Jewish Naturalization Act had been repealed and intolerance and prejudice had triumphed over tolerance and common sense, Smollett, seeing that he had lost his labour, partly relapsed into his former standpoint. The Jews may also have forfeited his sympathy for some other reason x), but, as they are only briefly alluded to in Smollett's last works, we had better not indulge in all kinds of conjectures. The fact remains that in Count Fathom the author makes an honourable amends for the two contemptible Jews of Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle, a circumstance which later on proved to have a beneficial influence on the drama and consequently on public opinion.
*) Smollett went through a time of great financial distress, which may have brought him into contact with Jewish brokers or money-lenders. The period seems to have lasted from 1753—1756 (David Hannay, Life of Smollett, London, 1887, p. 132).



CHAPTER III
RICHARDSON, STERNE, GOLDSMITH, MISS BURNEY, AND THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYISTS
The year 1753 may be called a memorable one for the English Jews in more than one respect. It saw among other things the passing of the Naturalization Bill, the publication of Count Fathom with its idealized Jew, and the appearance of Sir Charles Grandison. Among the great number of characters of this novel, which was written by Samuel Richardson (1689— 1761), there is also a Jew named Solomon Merceda, who is, however, the very antipode of Joshua Manasseh. Just as Smollett did in his earlier stories, Richardson describes a profligate Jew in his last novel.
Some other men of letters — most of them essayists — likewise paid attention to the Jews in the above-mentioned year. It has been thought fit to deal with this group of authors as a whole, after a review of the works of Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith and Frances Burney. The many anonymous political tracts of those days do not merit the least notice in these pages, as they have not the slightest literary value.1)
In Sir Charles Grandison we hear of Solomon Merceda for the first time in Letter XXXV 2), where William Wilson, the servant of the wicked Mr. Bagenhall, informs Sir Charles that his master had introduced him to Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, and to Mr. Merceda, a Portuguese Jew. In order to shed light on the latter's character we cannot do better than quote some portions of the above-mentioned letter. "In the service of these three masters, good Heaven forgive me! what villainies was I not the means of perpetrating! Yet I never was so hardened, but I had temporary remorses. But these three gentlemen would never let me rest from wickedness .... Sir Hargrave and Mr. Merceda used to borrow me; but I must say Sir Har-
1) They are enumerated by J. Jacobs and Lucien Wolf in Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, London, 1888, pp. 63—69.
2) Sir Charles Grandison (pub. Heinemann), London, vol. I.



grave is an innocent man to the other two .... Sir Hargrave told them he designed nothing more than a violation, if he could get my assistance, of the most beautiful woman in the world (Miss Byron). And, sir, to see the villainy of the other two: they both, unknown to each other, made proposals to trick Sir Hargrave, and to get the lady each for himself. But to me, Sir Hargrave swore that he was fully resolved to leave this wicked course of life. Bagenhall and Merceda, he said, were devils; and he would marry, and have no more to say to them." The abduction of Miss Byron is frustrated by Sir Charles, who also succeeds in bringing about an amicable agreement between the lady and her assaulters. It is on this occasion that a long discourse takes place, part of which may follow here:
Bagenhall: See what a Christian (i. e. Sir Charles) can do,
Merceda. After this, will you remain a Jew? Merceda: Let me see such another Christian, and I will give you an answer. You, Bagenhall, I hope, will not think yourself entitled to boast of your Christianity ? Bagenhall: Too true! We have been both of us sad dogs. x)
In the course of the same conversation Sir Charles remarks "that that one doctrine of returning good for evil is a nobler and more heroic doctrine than either of those people (Heathens and Mahometans) or your own, Mr. Merceda, ever knew." In consequence of Sir Charles's admirable behaviour Mr. Bagenhall and Mr. Merceda resolve to turn over a new leaf, but later on 2) we hear again of the wickedness of the Jew and his friends. In the neighbourhood of Paris Sir Hargrave and Mr. Merceda are attacked by some footmen. Sir Charles, who comes to their rescue, learns from the assailants that the two gentlemen had made a vile attack on a lady's honour, and that their master, the lady's husband, had ordered them to punish the two villains. When meanwhile this gentleman has also arrived on the spot his footmen compel the Jew and his friend to ask his pardon on their knees. Owing to his wounds Merceda falls
*) Sir Charles Grandison, vol. II, letter X.
8) ibid., vol. IV, letter XLI.



dangerously ill and dies. His "companions in iniquity", as they are called, also die a miserable death.
Richardson gives here a very black picture of a dissolute Jew. Besides his wickedness we know very little about him. He is of course very rich, else he could not move in aristocratie circles. Evidently he had only recently left Portugal for England, for we learn that he speaks English with a foreign accent. *) Although Smollett's licentious Jews belong to a quite different sphere of life from the libertine, Mr. Merceda — the one is a low-bred money-lender and the other a common merchant — it is perhaps not a bold guess to say that Richardson was influenced by Smollett. It is remarkable at any rate that in Richardson's first two novels no Jewish characters are found, and that af ter the appearance of Roderick Random (1748), which has a despicable Jewish figure, Richardson also introducés a contemptible Jew into his next work. As he started this early in 1750 2), he probably created the character of Mr. Merceda in the latter part of it or in the beginning of the following year, so that, unless we assume that Richardson made alterations in the course of the work, it is doubtful whether he was also affected by Peregrine Pickle. But the supposition that Roderick Random inspired Richardson is certainly not a fanciful one, as Isaac Rapine and Solomon Merceda are both presented to us as Jews who lead dissolute lives. Smollett in his turn had probably undergone the influence of the dramatists of the time, with whom the profligate Jew was more or less a stock figure. Examples of this will be given in the sections dealing with the drama.
Laurence Sterne (1713—1768), being a clergyman, often mentions Biblical Jews in his works. There are, however, also some other references. In The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy (1759—1765) the author says 3), referring to the hero of his story: "Never was the son of a Jew, Christian, Turk or Infidel, initiated into them (the religious rites) in so oblique and
*) Sir Charles Grandison, vol. II, letter X.
2) ibid,. vol. I, p. XX (Prof. Wm. Lyon Phelps, Introduction to Sir Charles Grandison).
*) Tristam Shandy, ch. CXLVI.



slovenly a manner. In another chapter*) he quotes the beginning of a bitter satire composed by Yorick's father:
A de vil 'tis — and mischief such doth work As never yet did Pagan, Jew or Turk.
In the last part of the book 2) we read Corporal Trim's story of his brother Tom and the Jew's widow at Lisbon. When Tom learned that a Jew, who kept a sausage-shop in the same street in which he was living, had died and had left his widow in possession of "a rousing trade", he proposed to her. The highly improper way in which he courts the widow is characteristic of Sterne's manner of writing. Af ter the wedding Tom is taken out of his bed and dragged to the Inquisition. According to Corporal Trim this would never have happened, if "they had but put pork into their sausages." Trim's story is one of the many obscene side-episodes of Tristam Shandy. The fact that Sterne makes a Jew's widow the heroine of it does not leave us in doubt as to his opinion of the Jews.
Another unkind reference is to be found in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768), in which the hotelkeeper at Calais is introduced to us in the foliowing way: "I looked at Monsieur Dessein through and through — eyed him as he walked along in profile — then en face — thought he looked like a Jew — then a Turk — disliked his wig — cursed him by my gods — wished him at the Devil!" 3)
The writings of Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774) occasionally display a kindlier feeling towards the Jews than the works of the authors investigated till now, and unfriendly references are few and far between.
Goldsmith's Essays (1758—1765) mention the Jews several times. In No. I, which gives a description of various clubs, allusion is made to a Jew pedlar,4) with whom "Mr. Dibbins was disputing on the old subject of religion", and who is a
1) Tristam Shandy, ch. CCLXX.
2) ibid., ch. CCLXXXIII—CCLXXXVI.
8) A Sentimental Journey, p. 25 (Tauchnitz edition).
4) The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith (The Globe edition, ed. Professor Masson), London, 1912, P- 286.



touching manner. He makes the First Jewish Prophet sing:
Ye captive tribes, that hourly work and weep Where flows Euphrates murmuring to the deep, Suspend your woes awhile, the task suspend,
And turn to God, your father and your friend, Insulted, chained, and all the world our foe,
Our God alone is all we boast below.
The First Chaldean Priest wants the Jews to sing a song, but the answer of the Second Jewish prophet is not doubtful:
No, never. May this hand forget each art That wakes to finest joys the human heart,
Ere I forget the land that gave me birth,
Or join to sounds profane its sacred mirth!
The above quotations are strongly reminiscent of some lines of one of Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies: By the Rivers of Babyion we sat down and wept (1815).
While sadly we gazed on the river Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song, but, oh never That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our harp for the foe!
Both poets were of course inspired by Psalm 137. *) It is remarkable that in The Guardian of April 1, 1713, Steele also publishes a version of the same 2) psalm, written, as he says, by Sir Philip Sidney (1554—1586).
Henry Austin Dobson asserts3) that Christopher Smart's Hannah moved Goldsmith to compose The Captivity. As this poem deals with the birth of Samuel4), a subject in no way connected with the captivity of the Jews in Babyion, Dobson evidently means that Smart's oratorio suggested to Goldsmith
') In 1765, the year after the composition of The Captivity, Christopher Smart (1722—1771) published Metrical Versions of the Psalms.
2) Printed in The British Essayists, op. cit., vol. XVI, p. 100.
3) The Cambridge History of English Literature,vol. X, p. 207.
4) I Samuel 1.



the idea of trying his hand at a simüar composition.
In his Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare (written in 1771, but not published till after the poet's death) Goldsmith describes a Jewish journalist:
But no matter, 1*11 warrant we'11 make up the party
With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty.
The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew;
They are both of them merry, and authors like you;
The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge.x)
In this poem Goldsmith tells in a very humorous way how he had once been tricked out of a haunch of venison, which he had received from Lord Clare. It is of course dangerous to derive matters of fact from imaginative literature and to conclude in this case that Goldsmith was on friendly terms with a clever and jovial Jewish author and journalist. But as the poet says in lines 17 and 18:
But, my lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my turn
It's a truth — and your lordship may ask Mr. Byrne,
we are inclined to believe that the Jew described here is not a fictitious persons, although assertions of eighteenth century authors concerning the truth of their narratives should often be taken "cum grano salis". But the principal thing is that the poet does not hold him up to ridicule, nor makes him a villain, but that he endows him with good qualities. His name is not mentioned; once he is called "the Jew with his chocolate cheek."
From the foregoing it will be clear that, generally speaking, Goldsmith's opinion of the Jews is more favourable than that of most of the writers examined hitherto. His generous disposition and his kind heart probably prevented him from concurring with and imitating those authors who could not write a novel or a drama without inveighing against the Jews. His tolerant and cosmopolitan views, expressed in the essay on national prejudices2), should also be mentioned here as
x) The Works of Goldsmth, op. cit., p. 593. 2) ibid., op. cit., p. 311.



possible motives which kept him from joining in the literary persecution of the Jews in those days.
The name of the first lady novelist must also be recorded in this chapter. Fanny Burney (1752—1840), the creator of the novel of home life, introduced a Jew into her second work Cecilia; or, Memoirs of an Heiress (1782). Mr. Harrel, Cecilia Beverley's trustee, is in want of money, and the young heiress, eager to help him, applies to her guardians to get the sum required, but does not succeed. He now advises her to have recourse to a Jew, "of whose honesty he had made undoubted trial"1), and who, as she was so near being of age, would accept "very trifling interest". Although the heart of Cecilia recoils at the very mention of a Jew, she does not raise any objection, and "honest old Aaron" soon settles the matter. She signs a bond for six hundred pounds, gives three hundred and fifty to her trustee, and keeps the rest for her own purposes. But the following day Mr. Harrel is again straitened for money, and as Aaron is out of town, and there is no other Jew in England who is willing to advance him money upon the same terms, he appeals to Cecilia herself. He tells her that other Jews are such notorious rascals, that he hates the very thought of employing them, and adds that the extra interest he has to pay to one of these extortioners is "so much money thrown away". Cecilia replies that the sum she received the day before, has already been destined for a particular purpose. Mr. Harrel now sends for another Jew, Mr. Zackery. When Cecilia asks him if he has ever applied to this man before, her trustee answers: "Never any but old Aaron. I dread the whole race. I have a sort of superstitious notion that if once I get into their clutches, I shall never be my own man again." 2) In order to prevent his ruin Cecilia lends him another two hundred pounds. Some time afterwards, when her extravagant trustee is threatened with three executions at the same time, and is about to commit suicide, she saves him again by borrowing 7500 pounds from Aaron. 3) Ten days after her becoming of
*) Cecilia, Book III, Ch. I.
2) ibid., Book III, Ch. I.
3) ibid., Book IV, Ch. I.



age she has recourse to the Jew again in order to procure another thousand pounds for Mr. Harrel. Mr. Monckton, one of Cecilia's guardians, hearing this, prevails upon her to accept the money from him and to pay off the Jew. The argument which Mr. Monckton puts forward is "the injury which her character might receive in the world, were it known that she used such methods to procure money," l) but in reality he acts from interested motives. Aaron is most disappointed, when all the money is paid back to him and he has to relinquish his bonds. Later on Cecilia is accused by old Mr. Delvile, whose son proposes to her, of ha ving been "a dabbler with Jews" during her minority.
As Aaron always remains in the background — the transactions with him are briefly mentioned as mere facts — we do not know much of his character. Since he is referred to as "honest Aaron" and "this good man" we must assume that he is not a bad fellow. Mr. Zackery, on the other hand, is represented as a sordid usurer. He stands for the whole race and Aaron is the exception which proves the rule. All other Jews are rascals and extortioners. Such are the extraordinary views of Fanny Burney. Literary influence and the author's wellknown propensity for caricature, as opposed to direct observation from life — Mr. Harrel is an excellent case in point — must be held responsible for exaggerated notions like these. The novelist's education and the influence of her surroundings should perhaps also be taken into account. In The Early Diary of Frances Burney (first published 1842—'46) a great many letters are quoted which Mr. Crisp, an old friend of her father's, who seems to have had the chief share in the formation of her mind 2), and whom she always calls Daddy, writes to her. One of them3), dated April, 1774, begins as follows: "I teil you what — you are a Jew — an Ebrew Jew4) — one of the line
*) Cecilia, Book V, Ch. VII.
2) Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays (Everyman edition), vol. II, p. 570.
3) Annie Raine Ellis, The Early Diary of Frances Burney, London, 1909, vol. I, p. 312.
4) We owe this pleonasm to Shakespeare. In Henry IV, part I (Act II, sc. 4), Falstaff says to Peto: "You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew."



Johnson introducés here a character, called Jack Sneaker, whose dread of Popery is illustrated by the fact that he rejoiced at the admission of the Jews to the English privileges, because he thought that a Jew would never become a Papist.
Richard Bathurst (d. 1762), in his essay entitled Adventures of a Halfpenny in The Adventurer of April 3, 17531), also mentions a Jew: "From thence I [i. e. the halfpenny] was transported, with many of my brethren of different dates, characters and configurations, to a Jew-pedlar in Duke's place, who paid for us in specie scarce a fifth part of our nominal and intrinsic value."
In The World of Aug. 16, 1753, Edward Moore (1712—1757), after having said that he does not mind continuing the present administration (i. e. The Pelham Government, which introduced the Jew Bill) a little longer, utters the following threat, ".... if I find the popular clamours against a late act of parliament to be true, namely, that it will defeat all the prophecies relating to the dispersion of the Jews; or that the New Testament is to be thrown out of our bibles and commonprayer books; or that a general circumcision is certainly to take place soon after the meeting of the new Parliament; I say, when these are so, I shall most assuredly exert myself as becomes a true-born Englishman." 2) In number thirty-nine of the same periodical Moore informs his readers that he has to suppress "a waggish letter" of a friend of his, which contained the story of a parson and his two maids whom he (i. e. the friend) called Rachel and Leah. 3)
On Dec. 6, 1753, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1694—1773) writes in the above-mentioned paper an essay called: Ironical Recommendations of the present Time*), in which he proves himself to be an opponent of the Jews. He communicates to his readers that he has not been invited by any important borough or country to represent them in the next parliament, and to defend their liberties and the Christian religion against the ministers and the Jews. He attributes this
1) The British Essayists, XXIV, p. 9.
2) ibid., XXVI, p. 178.
3) ibid., XXVI, p. 213.
«) ibid., XXVI, p. 264.



and others were preaching the doctrine of liberty, equality and fraternity, and were conceiving new theories of government and education, art and religion. As to the latter Rousseau remarks in his Contrat Social (1759): tolerance should be given
to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship." x) Concerning the equality of all citizens, The Declaration of Rights, published by the French National Assembly in 1791, laid down the foliowing rule in article VI: "All the citizens being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all dignities, public places, and employments, according to their capacity, and without any other distinction that than of their virtues and their talents." 2) In England itself changes were also taking place. More liberal principles in the government, serious attempts to abolish slavery, clemency in the penal laws, the reform of the prisons and other humanitarian movements (the foundation of philantropic and charitable institutions, the establishment of Missionary Societies and Sunday Schools, all of them results of the great religious revival led by John and Charles Wesley3)) showed that the Age of Enlightenment was also dawning. All this tended to banish superstition and prejudice, to create sympathy with the poor and the afflicted, and to promote tolerance and justice.
As the economical and political situation always reflects itself in literature, it was not long before the new tendencies also manifested themselves in verse and prose. In No. LXI of The Observer Cumberland writes: the present time
af fords a different view; the temper of the church grown milder, though its zeal less fervent; men of different communions begin to draw nearer to each other; as refinement of manners becomes more general, toleration spreads; we are no longer slaves to the laws of religion, but converts to the reason of it; and being allowed to examine the evidence and the foundation of the faith that is in us, we discover that Christianity is a religion of charity, toleration, reason and
*) Everyman edition, p. 122-
2) The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Edinburgh, 1843, II, p- 507.
3) Cf. J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People, vol. II, p. 697 (Everyman edition).



peace, enjoining us to have compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing." *) In Thomas Holcroft's The Road to Ruin (1792) we read in the prologue:
Telling us that Frenchman, and Polishman, and every man is
[our brother:
And that all men, ay, even poor negro men, have a right to
[be free; one as well as another! Freedom at length, said he, like a torrent is spreading and
[swelling,
To sweep away pride and reach the most miserable dwelling. 2)
It is not surprising that the Jews also profited by these enlightened ideas. Ere long champions for them arose in several countries. In Germany Lessing (Nathan der Weise, 1779)' Dohm (Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 1781) and Mendelssohn (Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum, 1783), each in their own way advocated Jewish emancipation. In France it was the writings of Rabaud Saint-Etienne ('Triomphe de l'intolérance, 1779), of Mirabeau {Sur Moses Mendelssohn, sur la Réforme Politique des Juifs et en Particulier sur la Révolution Tentée, en Leur Faveur, en 1753» dans la Grande Bretagne, London, 1787), and of the Abbé Gregoire (Essay sur la régéneration des Juifs, 1788 3)) which paved the way for better conditions for the Jews.
Of the English champions, who are all men of letters, the name of Rudolf Eric Raspe (1737—1794) should be mentioned first. Raspe, a German exile and author of the well-known Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (1785), published in 1781 a prose translation of Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Its preface is of great interest on account of the unambiguous way in which Raspe espouses the cause of the Jews. He informs his readers that Lessing's philosophic drama was not written for the stage,
*) The British Essayists, XXXIX, p. 69.
2) This passage is also quoted by Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama, Cambridge, 1927, p- 55-
3) In 1791 it was translated into English under the title of: Abbé Gregoire, An Essay on the Physical, Moral and Political Reformation of the Jews to the Rights of Natural, Moral and of Civil Society.



but was intended as "an antidote against that rancour of religious bigotry with which the Jews are still treated in many parts of Germany." The translator then mentions his own motives for an English version of Nathan der Weise. "The truly philosophic candour which breathes through the whole composition, and has dared to do justice to infidels, friars and patriarchs, has been deemed a characteristic of this nation; and though the unnatural and abominable character of Shylock continues to fan the expiring flame of inquisitorial bigotry, and universal toleration is far from being fully established, it is hoped, however, that Nathan will be suffered to counteract the poison which barbarous ages have left in the minds of fanatics, and Shakespeare and political factions may, some time or other, stir up again and put into fermentation." It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that in Cumberland's plea in The Observer Shylock and the Inquisition are also mentioned: "I verily believe the odious character of Shylock has brought little less persecution upon us, poor scattered sons of Abraham, than the Inquisition itself." x) It is therefore probable that not only Gellert, Smollett, and the spirit of the age, but also Raspe's preliminary remarks to Nathan the Wise caused Cumberland to deviate from his former views concerning the Jews, expressed in The Fashionable Lover (1772). 2)
Raspe's translation, which was not a very brilliant one 3), was followed by that of William Taylor of Norwich (1765—1836), who, as we learn from the preface, undertook the work in March 1790 "when questions of toleration were much afloat". It was printed the following year for distribution among the translator's acquaintances, and not until 1805, when people were again interested in the topic, were the remaining copies of that edition offered for sale. Taylor defines the work as "an argumentative drama written to inculcate mutual indulgence between religious sects."
Another circumstance which may have influenced Cumberland
x) The British Essayists, XXXVIII, p. 254.
2) See Ch. XIV.
3) A German critic says: "Sie ist höchst ungenau, vergreift sich vollstandig im Ton und lasst Stellen, die grössere Schwierigkeiten bieten, einfach aus" (Herzfield, William Taylor von Norwich, Halle, 1897, quoted by Sydney H. Kenwood in Lessing in England, The Modern Language Review, IX, p. 206).



attitude towards the Jews than that adopted by his contemporaries. In A View of the Hard-labour Bill (1778) Jeremy Bentham (1748—1832), the great philosopher and preacher of utilitarianism and social reforms, suggests a means to satisfy the religious scruples of Jews who might be sent to a labourhouse.a) The following passage from his Defence of Usury (1787) should also be quoted here: "By degrees, as old conceits gave place to new, nature so far prevailed, that the objections to getting money in general were pretty well overruled; but still this Jewish way of getting it was too odious to be endured. Christians were too intent upon plaguing Jews, to listen to the suggestion of doing as Jews did, even though money were to be got by it. Indeed, the easier method, and a method pretty much in vogue, was, to let the Jews get the money anyhow they could, and then squeeze it out of them as it was wanted". 2) Sir Walter Scott was the first English author who utilized the method referred to in the preceding sentence, for purposes of fiction. His Ivanhoe (1819) affords an eloquent example of the extortions to which the Jews were exposed in the middle ages. In this connection I need only remind the reader of the chapter 3) in which Scott describes how the cruel Front-de-Boeuf tries to wring a huge amount of money from Isaac of York. Was Scott influenced by the passage quoted above? It is difficult to teil, but it is remarkable that the Jew in Ivanhoe is a faithful illustration of the fact mentioned by Bentham.
The influence of the so-called Aufklarung on the treatment of the Jew in literature should not be overrated. If anybody were to think that henceforward only lovable Jews figure in drama and in fiction, he would be sorely mistaken. The great difference between the time prior and posterior to the dawn of enlightenment is that in the centuries before it English literature invariably produces odious Jews, whereas af ter it the benevolent Jew and his antipode are found side by side.
Robert Bage (1728—1801), in his Man as he is not; or, Hermsprong (1794) again mentions the traditional usurer. In chapter XXVI of this novel we find a graphic description of the life
*) Bentham, op. cit., IV, p. 24.
2) ibid., III, p. 16.
3) Ivanhoe, ch. XXII.



of a London buck, in which the Jewish money-lender constitutes an essential element: "[He] breakfasts in London, dines at Newmarket; devotes six days and nights to the fields of sport, of hazard, and champagne; and having done all that he has to do, that is, lost his money, returns to town, to the arms of his fair Rosabella; dozes away forty-eight hours between love and compunction; awakes, damns all impertinent recollections; sends for an Israelite; signs, and is again a buck." This exaggerated picture may have been suggested by the conventional Jewish money-lender, so common in late eighteenth century comedies, or by Fanny Burney's Cecilia (1782), which, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, gives an overdrawn portrait of the extravagant Mr. Harrel, who also has recourse to Jews whenever he is in monetary difficulties.
Maria Edgeworth (1767—1849) holds the traditional prejudiced opinions concerning the Jews in her first novels. In these the influence of Fanny Burney is clearly perceptible. Miss Edgeworth deals with the Jews in several of her works: Castle Rackrent (1800), Moral Tales (1801), The Absentee (1812), and Harrington (1817). The Jews in the first three stories are painted in very black colours, while in Harrington they are almost idealized. The difference is best illustrated by the folio wing two expressions: Mordecai in The Absentee is called "a devil" and "a monster", whereas Mr. Montenero in Harrington is termed "a jewel of a Jew". Although, strictly speaking, Miss Edgeworth's novels do not lie within the scope of this book, we shall have to pay at least some attention to them, as they reveal the influence of late eighteenth century writers and describe some aspects of Jewish life of the period under re view.
In Castle Rackrent, the scene of which is laid in Ireland, we read that Sir Kit marries a Jewess, a rich heiress from Bath. The description which the author gives of the bride is not very favourable: . she was little better than a blackamoor, and seemed crippled .... she spoke a strange kind of English of her own, could not abide pork or sausages, and went neither to church or mass." We also learn that she was obstinate and laughed like one out of her right mind. After the honeymoon a terrible quarrel arises about sausages which her husband had ordered. She is locked up in her room, where she remains



for seven years. Sir Kit, who, before his marriage, used to call her "my pretty Jessica", now speaks of her as his "stiff-necked Israelite". When he is killed in a duel his wife is set at liberty, and returns to England, after having shown her stinginess by giving no veils to the tenants at parting.
This first attempt in English fiction to portray a Jewess must be called a poor one, even apart from the fact that the story itself is not very credible. The picture is incomplete and does not suggest anything that is specifically Jewish.
The Absentee, which is generally considered the author's masterpiece, introducés us to a London coach-maker, Mr. Mordecai, a callous, malicious and unscrupulous Jew. His outward appearance is not very pleasant either: he has a dark wooden face with something unnatural and shocking in it. He shows himself a most inhuman and inexorable creditor; when the extravagant Sir John Berryl lies on his deathbed, the Jew tries to extort from the son a bond in which an exorbitant sum is mentioned. *) When Mr. Berryl refuses, Mordecai threatens to arrest his dying father. "The bond or the body, before I quit this house," is the alternative which he leaves the young man, thus proving himself to be a true descendant of Shylock. The Jew's designs are frustrated by Lord Colambre. The latter's father is also troubled by Mordecai, but is in his turn delivered from the clutches of the Jew by a solicitor.
Miss Helen Zimmern draws attention to the fact that in The Absentee the author shows her stern love of truth, and that she does not exaggerate for the sake of strengthening her effects. 2) This may be true of the Irish conditions described in this novel, but can certainly not be said of the highly overdrawn picture of the brutal Mr. Mordecai, who, by the way, is not mentioned at all by Miss Zimmern.
In Mor al Tales, which went through many editions and which was evidently intended for children, there are also two Jewish figures. One of these is a jeweller named Aaron Carat, who is described as being profoundly ignorant, though extremely cunning, and who is committed to prison for receiving stolen goods and for holding an illegal and unlicensed lottery.
x) The Absentee, ch. IV.
2) Helen Zimmern, Maria Edgeworth, London, 1883, p. 94.



This character occurs in the story entitieü ine lrooa auni. In The Prussian Vase a figure is introduced called Solomon the Jew, who is sentenced to sweep the streets of Potzdam for having written the word "tyrant" on a vase belonging to Frederick the Great.
It is evident that Miss Edgeworth drew from literary sources when she delineated her Jewish characters. Of the theme of the marriage between Jewess and Gentile several examples have already been given in the preceding pages. x) The Jewish receiver of stolen goods had already been mentioned by Daborne, Fielding and Burgoyne. As regards the Jew in The Absentee, he bears the name of Mordecai, one of the traditional appellations of the eighteenth century stage Jew. 2) The subject of this novel — the extravagant nobleman and the rapacious jew — may have been suggested by Fanny Burney's Cecilia. It is not impossible that Miss Edgeworth was also influenced by her father, who "coloured the whole of her earlier and middle works." 3) He is described as a man who possessed many prejudices and who was destitute of good taste and good feeling. 4) In this connection it is interesting to note that in Harrington, which makes the impression of being autobiographical, and which may be called an atonement for the novelist's attitude towards the Jews in the works just reviewed, the hero's father also prejudiced his son against the Jews.
As a justification of the Jewish cause Harrington is unconvincing and disappointing. It is un convincing, because the moral is too obtrusive, and because the behaviour and the sayings of the precocious William Harrington are unnatural. When a boy of about six or seven he utters the following witty sentiment in the presence of some guests of his father s who are discussing the question why the Jews should not be naturalized: "Why, ma'am, because the Jews are naturally an unnatural pack of people, and you can't naturalize what s naturally unnatural." ®) The story is also disappointing, in the
*) See p. 40.
2) See p. 111.
3) The Cambridge History of English Literature, XI, p. 296.
4) Helen Zimmern, op. cit., p. 4.
l) Harrington, ch. II.



first place, because its heroine, Berenice, Mr. Montenero's daughter, ultimately proves to be no Jewess: her mother was a Christian and the girl had been bred a Protestant; secondly, because Harrington's father is not fully cured of his conventional prejudiced views.
Yet the story presents some remarkable features, which deserve some notice here. From a boy William had feit a strong dislike of the word Jew, because his nurse had of ten tried to bring him to obedience by telling him frightful stories about cruel Jews. His parents, especially his father, who prided himself on the fact that he had voted against the Jew Bill, had also prejudiced him against them. It is interesting to hear what Miss Edgeworth says about the boy's reading, which perhaps
also referred to her own reading: " in almost every work
of fiction, I found them represented as hateful beings; nay, even in modern tales of very late years, since I have come to man's estate, I have met with books by authors professing candour and toleration — books written expressly for the rising generation, called, if I mistake not, Moral Tales for Young People *); and even in these, wherever the Jews are introduced, I find that they are invariably represented as beings of a mean, avaricious, unprincipled, treacherous character. Even the peculiarities of their persons, the errors of their foreign dialect and pronunciation, were mimicked and caricatured, as if to render them objects of perpetual derision and detestation." 2)
Contact with living Jews makes Harrington overcome his prejudices. First of all honest Jacob, the young pedlar, who does not overcharge, and who is rescued by our hero from being roasted over the fire by some cruel boys. I wonder whether Sir Walter Scott, Miss Edgeworth's friend and contemporary, thought of this episode when he introduced into Ivanhoe, which appeared two years after Harrington, the scene in which Front-de-Boeuf orders his slaves to roast Isaac over a furnace. 3) Another Jew by whom William is influenced, is Mr. Israël
') In all probability Miss Edgeworth also condemns here her own work Moral Tales, which, as we saw, was likewise written for children, and also depicts some unpleasant Jews.
2) Harrington, ch. II.
3) Compare Harrington, ch. III, and Ivanhoe, ch. XXII.



Lyons 1), a well-known Hebrew scholar of Cambridge, whose great learning, kind disposition and disregard of pecuniary interest made a great impression on him. Then there is Harrington's future father-in-law, Mr. Montenero2), a wealthy Spanish Jew, who had been driven from his country by persecution, had gone to America and afterwards settled in London as a jeweller. This is really a finely conceived character. He is a noble, agreeable and well-informed man, in whose presence the arch Jew-baiter, old Mr. Harrington, forgets that he is not a Christian. The influence of Smollett and Cumberland is perceptible here, but Mr. Montenero is a more refined and more polished character than Joshua and Abrahams.
x) Lyons, who died in 1770, was teacher of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge.
2) The Jewish group in Harrington — a widower and his daughter — may have actuated Scott to introducé some Israelites into Ivanhoe. In this novel the Jewish family likewise consists of a widower and his daughter. It is also remarkable that Miss Montenero as well as Rebecca are often referred to as "the fair Jewess". There are still some other circumstances, besides the one mentioned on p. 79, which point to Miss Edgeworth's influence on Scott. Both authors allude to the story of King John, who had confined a rich Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily had one of his teeth torn out until he consented to pay a large sum (Cp. Harrington, Ch. VI, and Ivanhoe, Ch. VI). Both novelists also account for the fact that Jews were the first inventors of bills of exchange (Cp. Harrington, Ch. VI, and Ivanhoe, Ch. VI). Besides Miss Edgeworth as well as her friend Scott often express their sympathy for the Jews in these two novels.
In The Times Literary Supplement of Jan. 1, 1920, Dr. I. Abrahams devotes a few words to the traditional theories for the origin of Rebecca: the Irving-Gratz incident, and James Skene's hint (mentioned by Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, VI, pp. 177-8). Dr. Abrahams does not question these possibilities, but says that Scott's sources were "literary rather than personal". He believes that Scott was influenced by The Jew of Malta, and mentions some parallels between Abigail and Rebecca. It may be called strange that he does not think at all of Miss Montenero in Harrington, the first novel in English literature that portrays a sympathetic Jewess. I consider it more than probable that Scott was also greatly influenced by Maria Edgeworth.



PART II
THE DRAMATISTS AND THE JEWS







CHAPTER V
LOVE TRIUMPHANT
When in 1693 John Dryden (1631—1700), the representative writer of the Restoration Period, brought out his Love Triumphant; or, Nature will Prevail at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, it was sixty-seven years since the last stage Jew had been created. In 1627 Thomas Goffe (1591—1629) wrote The Raging Turk, which has a Jewish character called Hamon. *) Between 1627 and 1694 not a single Jewish stage figure seems to have been introduced into any comedy or tragedy. When we consider that in Elizabethan times a good deal of attention was paid to the Jews by the contemporary dramatist, it may be called strange that during the last three quarters of the se venteen th century hardly any notice was taken of the Jews by the playwrights. As the theatres were closed from 1642 till 1660, it was practically only during the Restoration Period that the Jews were ignored by the dramatist of the day. Landa2) is inclined to believe that the playwrights at this period were rich enough in material not to need the Jews, and that their small number in England at the time and protection by the sovereigns may have exerted some influence. The second reason seems the weaker, for in Shakespeare's time there were virtually no Jews in England, and yet the drama gave birth to a fair 3) number of Jewish figures, among which, at least from an artistic point of view, the greatest ever produced in any language: Shylock and Barabbas. The last-named motive — royal protection — appears to me a more plausible one, for surely it is significant that Dryden ventured to write a play in which a Jew is held up to ridicule, after he had lost
*) J. L. Cardozo, op. cit., p. 67.
2) Landa, op. cit., p. 105.
3) They are enumerated in Cardozo, op. cit., p. 67.



his laureateship and his pension. x) Cardozo2) mentions the foliowing reasons: "When the Spanish and Portuguese Jews were received in small numbers, they were seen to be no Shylocks. As a matter of fact they were international merchants of high standing, rather overpoweringly aristocratie, who took a distinguished share in the commercial expansion of England. Moreover the stage had become far more confined in scope." The latter argument seems the less convincing: it is not clear why a limited stage should leave no scope for Jewish figures. To the reasons mentioned above I would add two others of a purely literary character: in the first place, in Restoration days The Merchant of Venice had hardly any influence, for it was never acted, and was little read, because there was too much romance in Shakespeare for the people to appreciate him. 3) Secondly, the conspicuous absence of Jews in the French plays which served as models for the Restoration dramatists, should not be lost sight of. The contemporary Jew does not figure in the works of Corneille, Racine and Molière.
Love Triumphant, written when "Glorious John" was sixty-two years old, was produced at Drury Lane in 1693, but was not printed until the folio wing year. It is a so-called tragi-comedy, a form of drama much in vogue in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Only the comic part, which occupies about one third of the play, interests us here, because its hero, Sancho the Jew, does not appear in the tragic part. The subject of the serious plot4) is supposed incestuous love, a theme apparently not very congenial to the English public, for it
1) Being a Roman Catholic, Dryden lost his public posts at the accession of William the Third in 1689. Before this date he had already paid some attention to the Jews, but in a different manner. In his famous political satire Absalom and Achitophel (1681), in which persons and places go by Biblical names, he compares the Englishmen who were loyal to Charles the Second, with the Jews in the days of king David.
2) English Studies, IX, p. 18.
3) Cf. Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Restoration Drama, Cambridge, 1923, p, 162.
4) For questions bearing upon the serious part of this play I must refer to E. Schröder, Dryden's letztes Drama, Rostock, 1905. It is in vain that we look here for any mention of the comic scenes. Even the name of the Jew Sancho is conspicuous by its absence.



is said that not only Dryden's Don Sebastian (1690), but also his Love Triumphant was unsuccessful for this reason. x)
In order to elucidate the character of the Jew we must give a rather circumstantial survey of the comic scenes of the play. Sancho, a colonel in the army of king Veramond, informs his colleague Carlos that through the death of his father [he calls him "the old Jew"] he has become sole heir of his property, and intends to fall "monstrously in love" with one of the court ladies. He secures the help of Carlos by promising him part of his fortune, and hands him a billet-doux, which he has to deliver to the very first girl he meets. The first young lady whom he overtakes proves to be Dalinda, his own sweetheart, the daughter of Lopez, an old courtier. Thinking only of the Jew's fortune, Carlos, in the presence of Lopez, gives Dalinda the letter, which appears to be a bill of exchange for two hundred pistoles. Sancho, who has witnessed everything from a distance, is now invited to come nearer. At first he denies that the bill was intended for Dalinda, but when he sees that the money is not unwelcome, he admits that it was meant for her. Lopez whispers to his daughter that she has to choose between Don Carlos, a poor young wit, and Don Sancho, a rich young fooi. The lady replies that she detests a fooi, but will accept him from necessity. When Lopez invites the Jew to come and dine with him, Carlos realizes that he has lost his mistress, and resolves to thwart Sancho. Therefore, when the latter leaves Lopez' house, Carlos advises him to beware of the father and the daughter, who only use him as a shoeing-horn for a rich old Count, Don Alonzo. The indignant Jew instantly runs to the young lady, who urges him to listen no longer to Carlos and to pass for the Count, a foolish old fellow, whom her father has seen only rarely. Meanwhile Carlos also resolves to play the Count; he knows that he can mimic him exactly. He does not consider it a great risk and the result may be that he marries Dalinda after all. In the third act Sancho enters upon the scene dressed like the hunchbacked Count. He says all kinds of stupid things to Lopez, and almost betrays himself, but
J) Sir Walter Scott, The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, edited by George Saintsbury, Edinburgh, 1882, vol. VIII, p. 368.



Dalinda, by having recourse to a ruse, ultimately manages to secure her father's consent for the marriage. She whispers into the Jew's ear that he must teil her father that he has already enjoyed her. Sancho does so of course, and adds that, in order to make amends, he will marry her. At that moment Carlos appears, also disguised as Don Alonzo. He discovers very soon that it is Sancho, and not the real Count whom he confronts. When the two counterfeits are likely to come to blows, Dalinda saves the situation again. Then a messenger enters who delivers a message from the late Don Alonzo, who has just been killed in a battle. Sancho and Carlos throw off their disguises now. Lopez accepts the Jew as his future son-in-law, as the Count is dead. Carlos tries to revenge himself by dropping a letter with the following contents in the presence of Sancho: "Dalinda is fair, and a fortune; but marry her not; for to my knowledge she has had a bastard by the late Count. But his sister Leonora is in love with you." The Jew finds the note, which is directed to Don Carlos. When Dalinda enters Sancho upbraids her with having deceived him, and flinging the letter to her, he leaves the room. She is just reading the forged note when Carlos enters, whom she, in her turn, overwhelms with reproaches for having ruined her reputation. By flattering him she gets him to write at the foot of the letter in the same hand: "This letter was wholly forged by me, Carlos." On the wedding day all kinds of disappointments are in store for the poor Jew, which have a sobering effect on him, however. He learns that Dalinda is not a rich heiress and that Lopez' estate is mortgaged to his own father. Carlos, who also comes to offer his congratulations, tells him that he is going to marry the dead Count's sister, an opulent lady. To crown all, a nurse brings in two children, a boy and a girl, who prove to be as many pledges of the late Count's affection for Dalinda! Sancho is at first very upset, but when his bride coaxes him a little, he soon mollifies and resolves to accept the inevitable, because "his youth is going". And when the two children kneel bef ore him and say: "Your blessing, papa," he promises to provide for them.
As we also set ourselves the task to tracé the eighteenth century stage Jew, we shall now have to find out where Dryden may have borrowed the character of Sancho from, and what



may have prompted him to introducé it into his last play. Before grappling with this matter, we ought to make some observations in connection with Sancho's character and name. To begin with the latter, this certainly does not suggest an Israelite. We need hardly be in doubt as to the source from which Dryden took it. Sancho reminds us of Sancho Panza, one of the chief characters in Don Quixote, the immortal masterpiece of the Spaniard Cervantes (1547—1616). x) The first part of this work, which appeared in 1605, was translated into English by Thomas Shelton in 1612. John Philips, Milton's nephew, published another English version in 1687. There are several indications in Dryden's works which prove that he must have been familiar with Don Quixote 2) His Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), for instance, contains a reference to Sancho Panza's doctor. 3) In The Wrangling Lovers (1676) of Edward Ravenscroft, a contemporary and imitator of Dryden, Gusman's inevitable servant, a simple, pleasant fellow, bears the same name, but spelt Sanco.4) If Dryden took this name from Cervantes, he certainly did not borrow much more from him. In the Spanish novel Sancho is an amusingly simple fooi, who abounds in good-nature, however, and who is devoted to his master. Ravencroft's Sanco, on the other hand, possesses many of the characteristics of Cervantes' hero.
As regards the person of Sancho, we are already biassed against him at the very first words he utters, on account of the way in which he speaks of his deceased father:
) It is also possible that Sanchio, an officer who acts an unimportant part in Beaumont and Fletcher's Rule a Wife and Have a Wife (1640), and who has nothing especial to distinguish him, supplied Dryden with a hint.
2) Cf. Gustav Becker, Die A ufname des Don Quijote in die englische Literatur (Palaestra XIII, Berlin 1906), pp. 54, 62.
3) Scott-Saintsbury, op. cit., II, p. 301.
*) This is not mentioned by Becker (see note 2). Another proof of Cervantes' influence, also overlooked by Becker, is the character of Sancho, a servant, in Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage (Drury Lane, Febr. 1693/4)- This play cannot have influenced Dryden, as it was produced some months later than Love Triumphant. It is not impossible that Southerne was affected by Dryden's drama, for in The Fatal Marriage (Act. II, sc. 2) there is a reference to a Jew. Samson, porter to Count Baldwin, says to Isabella, the latter's daughter-in-law, who had evidently sent him to one of her creditors to try and borrow some more money on jewels which had been pawned some time before: ". like a Jew, as he is, he says, you have had more already than the jewels are worth."



the person of Sancho. Lélie has become enamoured of a slave called Célie, and, being at a loss how to get possession of her, he secures the help of his cunning servant Mascarille; but just when the latter is about to accomplish his purpose, Lélie himself spoils everything by his stupidity and clumsiness. This happens no less than nine times. x) Only once, in the fourth act, when Lélie dines at the house of Trufaldin, the master of the beautiful Célie, and acts out of character a few times — he is disguised as an Armenian merchant — and actually betrays himself by his stupid answers, are we reminded of the episode in which Sancho attempts to pass for the Count. But the characters of Lélie and Sancho have not much in common. They are both great fools, it is true, but Sancho is entirely devoid of generous traits, whereas Lélie is a noble-minded young man: he restores to the lawful owner a purse which he has found, and on another occasion he comes to the rescue of a person who is being assaulted. 2) It is therefore not very probable that Lélie served Dryden as a model. The greater probability is — and this is a source for the lighter part of Love Triumphant which has been overlooked till now — that Dryden was influenced by Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and no King. In this drama some comic relief is afforded by the dialogue between the two captains Mardonius and Bessus. The behaviour and speech of the latter, who, just as Sancho, is vain and foolish and is made game of by everybody, is strongly reminiscent of the Jew in Love Triumphant. It is true, Bessus is a more congenial figure than his brother-in-arms Sancho, but they have so many things in common — their profession, their boastfulness, their weakness for women, and the way in which they commit themselves — that there is every reason to assume that Dryden also drew from the comic part of A King and no King. It becomes all the more probable when we bear in mind that Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy also supplied him with the material for the serious plot of Love Triumphant. He promoted Captain Bessus to the rank of colonel, and labelled him a Jew, af ter ha ving deprived him of his few agree-
*) J. Balland, Anthologie des Auteurs dramatiques franfais, Zutphen, 1882, n- P- 555-
2) Oeuvres de Molière (édition Despois et Mesnard, Paris, 1873), I, p. 100.



able qualities; for a Jewish stage-figure with one or two pleasant characteristics was an unheard-of thing in those days, which had never yet appeared on the boards. Sancho's profession, which may seem somewhat absurd at first sight, is no longer so surprising when we consider that he is a converted Jew.
It is not impossible that Sancho was "truly drawn from nature" in that the author had seen face to face one of the so-called Marannos or Nuovo-christianos: Spanish or Portuguese Jews who had been forced to profess Roman Catholicism to escape persecution. Many of them had come over to London during the reign of Charles the Second.
Dryden does not endow Sancho with many Jewish traits, either conventional or real. We only learn that he is very rich and that his father was a covetous Jewish usurer who had dealings with mortgages and behaved very brutally towards a desperate debtor of his, by forcing the man to lend him his wife as a compensation for the loss of his money. So the traditional identification of a Jew with a money-lender who will stick at nothing is not lacking here.
The bragging Sancho x) and his dissolute father bear eloquent testimony to Dryden's unfriendly attitude towards the Jews; and, indeed, the author's intention is rather transparent. In those days dramatists wrote only to please the people, and, Dryden, who after the loss of his public posts in 1689 had been obliged to turn to the stage again in order to earn a livelihood, must have been aware that he would serve his own interests as well as gratify the public by presenting to them a contemptible or ridiculous Jew. He knew that it was especially the common people and the middle classes who entertained hostile feelings towards the Jews. Examples are not wanting in Dryden's days. At the Whitehall Conference of 1655 the merchants and the majority of the divines were against the re-
*) Vanbrugh's The Mistake (1705) also has a boastful character named Sancho, who strongly reminds us of the figure we are discussing. In Act I, sc. 1, he says: "Look in my face, 't is round and comely, not one hollow line of a villain in it. Men of my fabric don't use to be suspected for knaves.... For my part, in this present case, I take myself to be mighty deep." Names like Lopez and Carlos also point to the fact that Vanbrugh was evidently influenced by Love Triumphant.



Shylock does not teil Antonio the story ot Jacob and Latjan, as he does in Shakespeare's play, but simply says: "You know the story". Thus far we do not see an important difference between the two Shylocks. But when we read the foliowing passage, of which the spaced lines are "improvements" of Granville's, we notice at once that His Lordship deviates considerably from his original:
Shylock. If you repay me not on such a Day, in such a Place, Such Sum or Sums as are expressed — Be this The Forfeiture.
Let me see, What think you of your Nose, Or of an Eye — or of — a Pound of Flesh To be cut off, and taken from what Part Of your body — I shall think fit to name.
Thou art too portly. Christian!
Too much pampered — What say you then To such a merry Bond?
Antonio. The Jews grows witty; 1*11 seal to such a Bond, And say there is much Kindness in the Jew.
Does not Shylock make himself ludicrous here, or rather, does not Granville make the Jew ridiculous in this passage? No wonder that Antonio says: "The Jew grows witty." This is, however, a characteristic which we must deny the original Shylock, whose powerful and cutting language only serves to satisfy his thirst for revenge, and whose sarcastic mind is too full of thoughts of deadly hatred to leave room for witty sayings.
But the worst is still to come. Shylock cuts a very foolish figure in a scene which Granville devised himself, and where we see Bassanio, Antonio, Shylock and others sitting "as at an entertainment", while music is playing. Antonio toasts his dear friend Bassanio, the latter drinks to the health of his charming Portia, while Gratiano pledges woman in general. We are astonished to see also Shylock sitting there at a separate table covered with food and drink, and we can hardly believe our ears when we hear him propose the following toast:
I have a Mistress, that outshines 'em all — Commanding yours — and yours tho' the whole sex:
7



O may her charms encrease and multiply; My money is my Mistress! Here's to Interest upon Interest.1)
We may safely say that in this scene, to which we shall have to refer afterwards in connection with one of Sheridan's plays, culminates Granville's attempt to make his Jew ridiculous. But this is not all. In the trial scene 2) Bassanio offers Shylock the whole of his body instead of a single pound of flesh from Antonio, and at last he draws his sword to defend his friend. This episode is so un-Shakespearian, that we cannot help quoting it here in full:
Bassanio. Say, Jew,
Here's Interest upon Interest in Flesh;
Will that content you?
Antonio. It may him, not me.
Bassanio. Cruel Antonio.
Antonio. Unjust Bassanio. [Jew laughs]
Bassanio. Why grins the dog?
Shylock. To hear a Fooi propose: Thou shallow Christian! To think that I'd consent: I know thee well,
When he has paid the Forfeit of his Bond,
Thou canst not „chuse but hang thy self for being The Cause; and so my Ends are served on both. Proceed to Execution.
Bassanio. Then thus I interpose.
[Draws and stands before Antonio: The Jew starts back. Antonio interposes.]
We strongly doubt whether Shakespeare would have made Shylock laugh, neither can we believe that he would have made Bassanio draw his sword — fancy a gentleman brandishing a weapon in a Court of Justice! 3) — nor can we imagine the Jew starting back when Bassanio places himself before Antonio, sword in hand, for Shakespeare's Shylock is no coward, whatever else he may be. He, who is not moved
1) Act II, SC. 2.
2) Act IV, sc. i
®) Cf. Genest, op. cit., II, p. 244.



even by the gravest insults, can hardly be awed or daunted by display of violence. No, we quite agree with Philipson when, after making a comparison between Barabbas and Shylock, he says: "Shakespeare's Jew is a heroic, intensely tragic figure, proud, deep, at times rising even to grandeur." x)
Another unlucky saying which Granville puts into Shylock's mouth should be recorded here. When Bellario has said to the Duke of Venice: "I have a way to tame him," the Jew makes fun of Bellario by exclaiming:
Hear, hear the Doctor: Now for a Sentence
To sweep these Christian Vermin, coupled
To the Shambles. O 'tis a Solomon. 2)
Granville's Jew, then, is evidently not the tragic character of The Merchant of Venice. He is little more than a caricature, a travesty of him. To the question why the author mutilated Shylock in this way, no satisfactory answer has been given yet. Genest 3) is the only critic who ventures an explanation. He suggests "that his object evidently was to exalt the character of Bassanio as much as possible and to depress that of Shylock." 4) It is difficult to believe, however, that it was Granville's intention to exalt the character of Bassanio more than Shakespeare had already done. At any rate there is no marked difference between the two Bassanios, and Granville's may be called a faithful copy of Shakespeare's. Another objection to Genest's suggestion is that the adapter could very well have depressed the character of Shylock without holding him up to ridicule, for instance by making him resemble the degenerate Barabbas more closely. The only plausible explanation seems to be that Granville evidently thought Shakespeare's play far too tragic
1) D. Philipson, The Jew in English Fiction, New York, 1918 (4th ed.), p. 38.
2) Act IV, sc. 1.
3) Genest, op. cit., II, p. 244-
4) When I had already finished the chapter on The Jew of Venice, I came across an article in English Studies (Dec. 1933) entitled The Merchant of Venice in the Eighteenth Century, whose author, F. T. Wood, without mentioning his source, copies Genest's suggestion. Dr. Small also follows in the footsteps of the latter (S. A. Small, Shakesperean Character Interpretation: The Merchant of Venice, Hesperia, Heft 10, Göttingen, 1927, p. 8).



and romantic, and as for briefness' sake he had already omitted the clown Launcelot Gobbo and some interesting scenes, he wished to bring in some comic relief and considered the Jew a suitable object for general derision. I think it quite possible that Granville had been prompted to do this by the example which Dryden had set him in Love Triumphant, in which play, as we saw in the preceding chapter, there is also a Jew who is intended to be the laughing-stock of the whole audience. To judge from the Prologue of The Jew of Venice, Granville held Dryden in high esteem. It is also interesting to note that the profits of the play were given to Dryden's son. *) That the author meant Shylock to be a more or less comic character may also be gathered from the fact that this part was taken by Dogget, a well-known comic actor in those days, who had also personated Dryden's Jew in 1693. Nicholas Rowe (1674—1718), dramatist, poet laureate and first editor of Shakespeare's plays, makes the following remark about Granville's adaptation: . though we have seen that play received and acted as a comedy, and the part of the Jew performed by an excellent comedian, yet I cannot but think it was designed tragically by the author. There appears in it such a deadly spirit of revenge, such a savage fierceness 'and fellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the style or characters of comedy." 2) Genest adds to this: "This is so plain, that it is strange that Granville should not see it, or that seeing it, he should presume to alter it." 3) It goes without saying that, when Granville made Shylock a ludicrous figure, he was also actuated by his hatred of the Jews. This is manifest from the following lines in the Prologue:
To-day we punish a Stock-jobbing Jew.
A piece of Justice, terrible and strange;
Which, if pursued, would 'make a thin Exchange.
1) We know this from a footnote in the second edition of the play. Cf. H. H. Furness, A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, London, 1892, vol. VII, p. 348.
2) Rowe, Some Account of the Life, etc. of Mr. William Shakespear, London, 1709, p. XIX. Cf. Furness, op. cit., VII, p. 421.
3) Genest, op. cit., II, p. 244.



The Laws Defect the juster Muse supplies,
Tis only we, can make you Good or Wise,
Whom Heaven spares the Poet will chastise.
The title which Granville chose for his reworking of The Merchant of Venice, was not a new one. We have already mentioned Thomas Dekker's lost drama The Jew of Venice. And there existed another play of that name as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century.1) Granville probably preferred this suggestive title to the original one, because it might serve as a suitable lure for inveterate Jew-baiters.
The character of Jessica was also altered for the worse by the adapter. In Shakespeare's version we of course condemn her elopement with Lorenzo, we do not palliate the robbery of her father's jewels, and we cannot help suspecting her of having turned Christian for the sake of a husband, but we are inclined to forget all this for a moment, when we think of her beauty, her great love for Lorenzo and the hesitating way in which she escapes from her father's house, ashamed of her boy's clothes and having no other wish but to hurry away at once. Granville introducés us to a Jessica who, even at such a critical moment as her running away from her paternal home, finds an opportunity to hold her father up to ridicule: she repeats his last words and obeys his orders in a mockserious way:
Shut Doors after you; fast bind, fast find,
These were his last Words; Thus I avoid the Gurse of Disobedience! Be thou shut till I Open thee. 2)
Granville of course expected the audience to laugh at this humorous sally of hers. But she forfeits our sympathy entirely, because she does not remonstrate when Lorenzo scoffs at her father by saying:
So whilst old Laban snored in Bed,
Jacob with sprightly Rachel fled.
*) Furness, op. cit., p. 325. 2) Act II, sc. 1.



Jessica even takes over the simile when, holding up a bag, she continues:
His Gold, and Gems and Price they took,
And eke the Flower of every Flock.
In Shakespeare's play there is not the slightest indication that Jessica ridicules her father or speaks ill of him. True, when she is in Portia's house and the news has arrived that Antonio's ships are all lost and he is sure to get into trouble now, she confirms Salarino's statement that her father will never relent, nor does she make an attempt to defend him, but reveals the full truth concerning his vindictive plans:
When I was with him, I have heard him sweare To Tuball and to Chus, his countrymen,
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh Than twenty times the value of the summe That he did owe him: and I know, my lord,
If law, authoritie and power denie not It will goe hard with poore Antonio. x)
It should not be lost sight of that there is a great difference between telling the truth about a person and ridiculing him.
Summarizing our comparison of the Jewish characters of The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Venice, we may say that Granville deliberately made Shylock and Jessica comic figures, the latter in a less degree, however, than the former. It is strange that the fact that Jessica also was meant to evoke laughter at the expense of her father has been entirely overlooked by critics till now. Since in Dryden's Jew Sancho we noticed the same propensity of scoffing at his father, we are inclined to conclude that Granville, influenced by Dryden, also made Jessica speak disparagingly of her father. Enough has been said now to show that not only Dryden, but also Granville must be held accountable for the ridiculous eighteenth century stage Jew. The former presented us with a despicable apostate, the latter left behind a mutilated Shylock and a mocking Jessica.
1) The Merchant of Venice, Act III. sc. 2, 11. 301—307. Granville omitted this passage.



The Jew of Venice does not seem to have been very popular either 1), so that these two plays could hardly be expected to inspire the contempory dramatists. The sudden resuscitation of the stage Jew in 1733 is to be attributed to another cause; but before considering this matter we ought to pay some attention to a number of references in the plays of the period. We should not think that between the years 1693 and 1733 it was only Granville who took notice of the Jews.
The works of William Congreve (1670—1729), George Farquhar (1678—1707) and Sir John Vanbrugh (1672—1726) should especially be mentioned in this connection. In Congreve's The Doublé Dealer (Drury Lane, Oct. 1693) Lady Plyant, who is notorious on account of her insolent attitude towards her foolish husband Sir Paul, calls him a Turk, a Saracen, and later on a Jew, when a letter, compromising her and found by him, compels her to get out of the difficulty by sheer impudence. She therefore accuses her husband of having written the letter himself, to which Sir Paul answers meekly: "If I desired him [Careless, Sir Paul's friend and Lady Plyant's lover] to do any more than speak a good word for me, I'm an Anabaptist, or a Jew, or what you please to call me." 2) In The Way of the World (Lincoln's Inn Fields, March 1699/1700) Congreve makes Witwoud observe to Petulant: "Then we contradict one another like two battledores; for contradictions beget one another like Jews." 3)
Farquhar's references are still more uncomplimentary. He makes a woman called Parley exclaim in Sir Harry Wildair (Drury Lane, April 1701): "Teil a wife's secrets to her husband? Very pretty faith! Sure, sir, you don't think me such a Jew." 4) The Twin-Rivals, which was brought out at Drury Lane on Dec. 14, 1702, records an adventure of a licentious Jew. Mrs. Mandrake, a midwife, confesses to Benjamin Wouldbe that Subtleman, his valet, is the son of Mr. Moabite, "the rich Jew in Lombard Street", who one evening had conveyed to her house an unknown young lady who was on the point of being
*) Furness, op. cit., VII, p. 371.
2) The Doublé Dealer, Act IV, sc. 3.
®) The Way of the World, Act III, sc. 3.
4) Sir Harry Wildair, Act I, sc. 1.



The first two of these plays, which were exceedingly successful in Hogarth's time, must especially have influenced him. We know that he was in great sympathy with The Beggar's Opera 1). He even produced a burlesque of it (1728), and painted a scene from it (1732), not to ridicule it, but to emphasize its moral. "Hogarth," says Kidson, "appears to have been the one man in that age who understood its mission." 2)
From the above it will be clear that afew apparently simple ref eren ces to profligate Jews in some very popular contemporary plays probably suggested to Hogarth the introduction of a Jew into A Harlot's Progress. The feelings which prevailed against the Jews at that time may have strengthened him in his intention. In 1732 — the year before the publication of the prints — anti-Jewish riots had taken place in London. Hyamson 3) tells us that in this year "a paper was published by one Osborne accusing Jews of being accustomed to murder those who married outside the community. One definite instance was quoted, and it was said that the woman and her child had been murdered by Jews lately arrived from Portugal. The publication roused the populace, who attacked all Jews who fitted the description given. Mobs were abroad in several parts of the city."
Hogarth's description of the Jew was imitated not only by Theophilus Cibber, but also by some other dramatists of the day. In 1735 appeared in London The Jew Decoyed; or, The Progress of a Harlot. This ballad opera, of which the author is unknown, has never been performed. Its contents are pretty much the same as those of Cibber's play. They only differ in details, which is partly owing to the fact that The Harlot's Progress is a pantomime, whereas The Jew Decoyed is a ballad opera, a species of drama, which Gay had suddenly popularized in 1728 by the publication of The Beggar's Opera.
In the prologue of The Jew Decoyed the author mentions his source:
From the keen satyr in sly Hogarth's prints,
We own we took for most that follows — hints.
!) F. Kidson, The Beggar's Opera, its Predecessors and Successors, Cambridge, 1922, p. 54.
2) ibid., p. 54.
8) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 263.



The harlot is now named Moll Hackabout and the brothelkeeper Miss Lurewell. As to the Jew, the anonymous writer had the extreme impudence to call him Manasseh ben Israël, a name to which we already referred in the chapter on Smollett. Manasseh ben Israël, the friend of Vossius, Hugo de Groot, Barlaeus, Rembrandt and Anna Maria Schuurman, was the great Jew who in 1655 had pleaded for the re-admission of his co-religionists into England.
After Moll has been debauched by Colonel Goatish and Squire Spruce, she becomes the mistress of Manasseh, who is introduced by the author in the following way:
At last, of Israel's scattered race there came
A wealthy lover, welcome to the dame.
Gold soon prevailed — vain was old Lurewell's weeping,
The Jew she hated, but was fond of keeping;
Manasseh had her — at a price how dear!
Will quickly from the following scene appear.1)
The Jew pro vides her with a lodging and several masters who have to teach her English, French, music and dancing. Notwithstanding all this she continues having intercourse with Squire Spruce. One day, when the latter has prevailed upon her to give him one of her diamonds and to make the Jew believe that she has lost it, they are almost surprised by him. Spruce manages to slip out at the door. When Moll appears to be angry at his sudden entrance, Manasseh, who cannot speak English very well, says: "Pray you, my dear, no be in a passion; I thought I heard a bustle in your shamber, and that make a me come up so hastily to see what was de matter." The Jew, seeing that only money will appease her anger, gives her some coins, saying: "Here a den there is nine of them; dey are all I have about me; but what a you do wid money?" 2) When Manasseh discovers a snuff-box belonging to Spruce, he attempts to turn Moll out of doors, but she knocks him down, snatches his watch, and keeps her hand upon his throat, till her maid Alice has taken a bundie out of a drawer. Then the two women run away after having locked the door. In Act II,
*) The Jew Decoyed, Act I, sc. 5.
2) ibid.. Act I, sc. 5.



sc. 3, the Jew appears for the last time, when, accompanied by Justice Minimus and several constables, he enters Moll's house to recover his property. On seeing it, he exclaims: "Dis is my watch; I vil swear dat, Mr. Justice, before the whole bench."
The inability of Manasseh to speak English fluently must be considered as a new means to ridicule the Jews; and the honour of having invented this novelty is probably due to the anonymous author of The Jew Decoyed, who uses this so-called Jewish dialect for the first time in drama. Landa *) is therefore wrong in maintaining that Cumberland "nibbled at the dialect" in The Fashionable Lover in 1772, and that it was not until eleven years later that it made its formal debut in The Young Quaker (1783), whose author — O'Keeffe — he styles "master of gibberish", whereas it actually appeared as early as 1735 in The Jew Decoyed, and was imitated by Cumberland, Foote (who is not mentioned at all by Landa), O'Keeffe and others successively. In order to show that this "Jewish dialect" is of one and the same kind in the works of the above-mentioned dramatists, and that no climax is reached in O'Keeffe's dialogue, as Landa asserts, I shall give a short quotation from each of the plays in which this dialect is employed.
"Dis is my watch; I vil swear dat, Mr. Justice." (The Jew Decoyed, 1735, Act II, sc. 3).
"War is a var coot thing; and then the plague; a blessed circumstance, tank Heaven; a blessed circumstance, coot 7 per cent." (Cumberland, The Fashionable Lover, 1772, Act III, sc. 2).
"I vas never see a more finer vomans since I vas born. I always finds de ladies very partial to me." (Foote, The Cozeners, 1774, Act I, sc. 1).
"I vill draw a bill upon your beauty, which your virtue must accept; you pay me vid your honour, and den Cupid, my little clerk, vill give you a receipt, and I vill stamp it wid a kiss." (O'Keeffe, The Young Quaker, 1783, Act III, sc. 2).
*) Landa, op. cit., p. 120.



The reader will notice that there is not a material difference between these specimens and that Foote has perhaps as great a claim to the name of "master of gibberish" as O'Keeffe.
To return to Manasseh ben Israël, it is of course superfluous to say that he has nothing in common with his great namesake, except the name and his Portuguese nationality. x) The Jew's name is seldom mentioned in the play; he is mostly spoken of as "this rascally old Jew", "the old fooi", "the simpleton", "the villain", "your old son of circumcision", and "a covetous old hunks".
It is getting time that we take leave of this flimsy ballad opera and pay some attention to a somewhat superior Jew play, Fielding's Miss Lucy in Town, which also clearly betrays the influence of Hogarth's famous series of pictures.
Henry Fielding (1707—1754) began his dramatic career in 1728 after his stay at Leyden. Of his twenty-seven theatrical efforts four will pass in review here: The Miser (1732), Don Quixote in England (1733), Pasquin (1736) and Miss Lucy in Town (1742). Fielding's unfavourable opinion of the Jews as reflected in his novels has already been considered in the first chapter.
In The Miser, which is a reworking or rather a free translation of Molière's L'avare (1668), Frederick, who is sorely in need of money, exclaims2), after hearing from his servant Ramilie of the exorbitant demands of a money-lender, who appears to be his own father Lovegold, the miser: "Oh the devil! What a Jew is here!" This sentiment cannot be laid to the account of Fielding, as it is a translation of the French: "Comment diable! quel Juif!"3)
In Don Quixote in England (Haymarket4), c. April 1734), John, Fairlove's servant, says the following nonsense, when asked who his master is: "Oh, Sir, his name is Sir Gregory Nebuchaddonnezzar. He is a very rich Jew, an Italian by
*) The Jew Decoyed, Act I, sc. 6.
2) The Miser, Act II, sc. 1.
s) L'avare, Act II, sc. 1.
*) As there are no records of first performance, it may already have been acted before this date: see Nicoll, A History of Early 18th Cent. Drama, p. 327. In The Works of Henry Fielding, ed. Arthur Murphy, London, 1808, vol. IV, p. 57, the date 1733 is given.



proposal to the enraged husband: "If you intend to part with your wife, I will give you as much for her as any man." Mr. Thomas now recognizes in Zorababel the man from whom he had purchased a ticket in the last lottery "for as much again as it was worth." And with the words: "a footman shall teach such a low, pitiful, stock-jobbing pickpocket to dare to think to cuckold his betters," he kicks the Jew off the stage, who retreats, exclaiming: "Very fine! very fine! a ten-thousandpound man is to be kicked!" This is the last we hear of Mr. Zorababel. The farce ends with a reconciliation between Mr. Thomas and his wife.
After being acted a few times, Miss Lucy in Town was temporarily interdicted by the Lord Chamberlain, as the character of Lord Bawble was taken as a satirical portrait of a particular nobleman. x) One would rather have expected that it would have been suppressed on account of its highly offensive picture of a repulsive Jew. There cannot be the least doubt that the play was written under the influence of Hogarth, and probably also of Cibber and the anonymous author of The Jew Decoyed, for they all portray the same theme: a rich and profligate old Jew who is duped by his mistress. The influence of the great artist also extended itself to Smollett. As we saw in a preceding chapter, Isaac Rapine in Roderick Random (1748) and the Dutch Jew in Peregrine Pickle (1751) are pictures of wealthy and dissolute Jews who are cheated out of their mistresses.
It is strange that Hogarth's influence on Fielding's plays has not yet been pointed out. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time that attention has been drawn to it. It is the more curious when we consider that Fielding was a great friend and admirer of Hogarth, and that in his prose-writings he frequently mentions the celebrated painter; in his eassay on Charity, for instance, he highly praises the humour and moral force of A Rake's Progress and of A Harlot's Progress. 2)
The picture which Fielding gives of the Jew is the most elaborate of the four discussed in this chapter. He shows us not only his wealth, his jealousy, and his dissoluteness, but
*) Nicoll, A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama, p. 246.
2) The Cambridge History of English Literature, X, p. 24.



also his underhand dealings, his sharp practices, his presumption and his cowardice. Invective is hardly ever used by the author. Once Zorababel is addressed by Lucy with: "you old fusty fellow". Mrs. Midnight, on the other hand, refers to him as "a sober Jew".
The name Zorababel, which must be a corruption of Zorobabel — a variant of Zerubbabel — had not yet been given to the stage Jew before. Fielding may have taken it direct from the Bible: Zerubbabel was the leader of the Jewish exiles on their return to Jerusalem. *)
Fielding, in his turn, influenced Joseph Reed, the author of the two-act farce The Register Office, which was produced at Drury Lane on April 25, 1761. This piece also mentions a profligate Jew named Zorobabel. In Act II, sc. 1, Mrs. Snarewell, an old brothel-keeper, complains to Gulwell, the director of the register office, that owing to her illness the reputation of her house will be "utterly blasted for want of fresh faces":
Gulwell. Madam, be comforted; many of them will be
applying to-morrow to know their success. Snarewell. I have promised a virgin to Mr. Zorobabel Habakuk to-night.
Gulwell. You must palm some of your freshest commodities
on him for one.
Snarewell. He is too knowing in these matters to be imposed on. It would be as difficult to deceive my little Israelite in that point as a jury of matrons: besides, he pays the price of virginity; and I am a person of more honour and conscience than even endeavour to fob him off with a counterfeit.
A footnote 2) in one of the editions of the play informs us that the character of Mrs. Snarewell was not permitted to be played. The reason is not mentioned, but is not difficult to guess. The immoral talk of this woman, who is represented as a pious Methodist, was probably a sufficiënt motive for the Lord Chamberlain to cancel the part of the old bawd. It is not very
*) Nehemiah VII, 7.
2) A Collection of the most esteemed Farces and Entertainments performed on the British Stage, Edinburgh, 1786, vol. III, p. 354.



likely that the passage in question was rejected on account of the shameless references to a Jew, as Fielding's Zorababel did not suffer at the hands of the censor.
It is doubtful whether Reed, when portraying the character of Mrs. Snarewell, allowed himself to be influenced by the description of Mrs. Cole in Foote's The Minor, which was produced more than a year before The Register Office. Prof. Belden is inclined to believe that the reverse is more probable.1) This much seems certain, however — and I am astonished that neither this critic nor the authors of the Biographia Dramatica, when tracing the characters of Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Snarewell, make mention of it — that Reed was influenced by Fielding, for Mrs. Snarewell very strongly reminds us of Mrs. Midnight in Miss Lucy in Town. Both are keepers of houses of ill fame who attend Methodist services, indulge in hypocritical talk, and complain that business is declining. Both have a Jew called Zorobabel among their customers.
The invention of queer combinations like Zorobabel Habakuk2), which were evidently intended to produce a comic effect, was probably not due to Reed,but to Fielding.3) Foote, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, also employs names like Mordecai Lazarus, Abednego Potiphar, etc.
*) Belden, op. cit., p. 187.
2) Habakkuk was a Hebrew prophet of unknown date.
s) See p. 117,



CHAPTER VIII
THE JERUSALEM INFIRMARY
We now proceed to consider a Jew play that is probably unique of its kind, the farce The Jerusalem Infirmary; or, A Journey to the Volley of Jehosaphat. This play, of which the author wisely did not mention his name, was to have been acted at "next Southwark Fair", and purports to have been published at Venice in 1749. There is every reason to believe that the name of this town was attached to the piece simply and solely to throw people off the scent. The play seems to have got lost, as my inquiries at the principal English libraries and at the San Marco library at Venice had no result.
Our only source of information is the Biographia Dramatica, one of whose editors, probably Isaac Reed (1742—1807), must have read the play. We are told that "it is a piece of the most unintelligible, and at the same time abusive jargon ever seen, and is written with a view to expose and calumniate a number of private personal characters among the Jews, and some design, as it should seem, at that time on foot, by some of that sort of people, towards the establishment of an infirmary, which place is made the scene of action, and the president (who is a monkey) the principal person in the drama. It refers to some public print at that time also put forth with the like design; but as we do not immediately call to mind the particular event on which it turns, we shall conclude with only observing, that it is so execrably bad, as neither to be worthy of a moment's loss of time spent in the perusal of it, or the waste of any farther notice of it in this place." *) This extraordinary piece is also mentioned by Calisch 2) and Landa 3), but the remarks which these authors make are borrowed from the account just quoted. The title of the farce does not occur in Nicoll's Handlist of Plays.
*) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 344. 2) Calisch, op. cit., p. 106.
') Landa, op. cit., p. 115.



We fully understand that Reed did not take enough interest in a production like this to give us more particulars about it. But as in a treatise on the attitude of the eighteenth century novelist and dramatist towards the Jews this play, too, merits full consideration, we could hardly be content with Reed's description. Moreover, the peculiar title of the piece and the fact that its somewhat mysterious contents have been buried in oblivion now for two centuries, sufficiently roused our interest to make further researches, which, fortunately, did not prove to be abortive.
There is still extant in the Bodleian Library at Oxford a broadsheet engraving1), bearing the same striking title as the farce: The Jerusalem Infirmary; alias, A Journey to the Valley of Jehosaphat." 2) It caricatures a hospital and is without doubt the print to which Mr. Reed refers. The play being lost, we shall discuss the picture instead of it, for we may safely assume that both deal with the same theme. From Reed's remark, "It refers to some public print," we conclude that the engraving is older than the farce. 3)
The event which the editor of the Biographia Dramatica did not remember must have been the erection of Beth Holim. In October 1747 a resolution was passed by the Elders of the Portuguese Community in London, "appointing a committee to consider whether it was practicable to establish an hospital or infirmary for the sick poor." 4) The suggestion was favourably received, and the next year Beth Holim was opened in
1) Douce Prints a 49 (81).
2) When I had already written this chapter, I was informed by the Rev. D. A. Jessurun Cardozo of Ramsgate that the print, of which there is also a copy in the British Museum, had just been described by Mr. Alfred Rubens in Anglo-Jewish Portraits, a Biographical Catalogue of Engraved Anglo-Jewish and Colonial Portraits from the Earliest Times to the Accession of Queen Victoria, a work that will shortly be published by the Jewish Museum in London. Through the kind offices of Mr. Jessurun Cardozo I obtained from the chairman of this Museum, Mr. Wilfred S. Samuel, an off-print of Mr. Rubens's article, which enabled me to shed some light on a few points that were still obscure. Borrowings from his description of the engraving will be found in the notes and have been indicated by mentioning the name Rubens between brackets.
3) Rubens is of another opinion. He says: 'The title appears to be taken from an anonymous play, 'The Jerusalem Infirmary'
4 The Jewish Chronicle, Febr. 25, 1876.



Leman Street, Goodman's Fields, a district which was inhabited at the time by many wealthy Jews.x) The hospital served a threefold purpose: a home for the sick poor, for maternity cases and for the aged poor. 2) These facts sufficiently explain the title The Jerusalem Infirmary.
The sub-title is not difficult to account for either. On the right-hand side of the engraving 3) there is an open door, which evidently leads to a cemetery, and over which we read: Janua Mortis (Gate of Death). Over a window, through which the churchyard is clearly distinguishable, there is the Hebrew inscription: kuil a nu (We are all dead). It is interesting to note that the engraver may be said to have been a man of prophetic foresight, for in 1792 the institution was transferred to its precent site, a corner of the old cemetery of the Portuguese congregation in Mile End Road. Dapper4) informs us that the Valley of Jehosaphat, which lies close to Jerusalem, and by which is meant the gorge between the Mount of Olives and the Mount of the Temple, was used as a burial-place. Hence "a journey to the valley of Jehosaphat" evidently means "to set out upon one's last journey." The connection between the title and the sub-title becomes quite clear now: in the opinion of the caricaturist the hospital was so bad that the admission of a patiënt into it would ere long be folio wed by his burial. The peculiar expression "a journey to the valley of Jehosaphat" is probably of Jewish origin, but has not been borrowed from the Bible, as the name Jehosaphat referring to the gorge just mentioned occurs for the first time in the fourth century after Christ. ®) In the Old Testament there are also two refer-
*) Rubens, who bas consulted the Minute Books of the Beth Holim, which are in the possession of the Bevis Marks Synagogue, informs us that "a member of the committee received an anonymous letter warning him that all the subscribers were in danger, there being a plot on foot to shoot them and set their houses on fire. Another threatening letter was received during 1748, and the committee decided to hire a guard."
2) Margoliouth, op. cit., II, p. 83.
3) See the picture at the beginning of this treatise.
4) Dr. O. Dapper, Nauwkeurige Beschrijving van Syrië, Palestijn of Heilige Lant, Amsterdam, 1677, p. 505: "Het dal Josafats was eertijds een algemein kerkhof der stad voor het gemein en slecht volk."
6) Cf. L. H. K. Bleeker, Kleine Profeten, Groningen, 1934, II, p. 44.



ences to the valley of Jehosaphat (Joel 3 v. 2 and 12).1) Here, however, the name seems to be only a symbolic term for the place where the Last Judgment will be held (Jehosaphat means: Jahwe pronounces judgment), a belief2) common with Jews, Christians and Mohamedans. 3) In all the dictionaries which I have been able to consult the expression we are considering is conspicuous by its absence, which is somewhat surprising, as the title of the play under review is not the only place where it occurs. I am able to supply another instance. In a letter which Laurence Sterne wrote at Coxwold in 1761 to his cousin J-H-S-Esq. it says: . what think you of a jaunt there [Mecca], before we finally pay a visit to the vale of Jehosaphat." 4) Here, too, the phrase evidently means "to set out upon one's last journey." The Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens and the Wörterbuch der elsassischen Mundarten, are, to the best of my knowledge, the only dictionaries that mention a variant of the expression. Af ter ha ving given many particulars about the valley itself and some phrases connected with it, the compiler of the first dictionary says: "Ins Tal Josaphat gehen für 'sterben' wird im Elsasz von verendenden Tieren gebraucht." 5) He then refers to the Wörterbuch der elsassischen Mundarten, where we read: "Er geht ins Thai Josaphat; er wird bald sterben (nur von verendenden Tieren, Hunden u. a. gebraucht)." 6) We are also informed here that the expression is only used in Ropentzwiller, the department of the Upper Rhine.')
!) "I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehosaphat; and I will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israël, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land .... Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehosaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about."
2) Cf. Jewish Encyclopaedia, VII, p. 87, and Bleeker, op. cit., II, p. 44.
8) A good illustration of this belief is found in 11. 5164-5 of Richard Holle de Hampole's The Pricke of Conscience (c. 1340):
Al men sal ryse to {3e dome,
And in Jje vale of Iosaphat come.
4) Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, to which are added the Letters and a Life of the Author (Letter XVIII).
5) Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, Berlin, 1931, IV, p. 774-
6) Martin und Lienhart, Wörterbuch des elsassischen Mundarten, 1899, I, p. 412.
') Hildebrand's Camera Obscura (2Óth edition, Haarlem, 1911, p. 341)



Let us now return to the engraving, whose queer figures and striking inscriptions in several languages (Latin, Spanish, Hebrew and English) will enable us to reconstruct much of the probable contents of the play. A tablet over the door on the left inscribed as follows first attracts our notice: Pharmacopoeia contracta in usum nosocomii ad pauperes e gente Lusitanica curandos nuper instituti A.I. de C. S. & P. de L. — M. D. et ejusdem nosocomii medicis concinati2) (Pharmacopoeia, compiled for the use of the hospital for the cure of poor Portuguese, lately founded by I. de C. S. and P. de L. 3) — M. D. and arranged for the doctors of the same hospital).
The figures on the print, each of which has a number referring to a description at the bottom of the engraving, next call for our attention. Round the table, on which can be distinguished a dice-box and dice, the five members of the committee are sitting: a monkey (called "the wisest Governor"), whoisthe chairman and who seems to be holding a syringe in his hand, a Scotch harp-player, and three other gentlemen, respectively indicated by "Well said Rabbi, Notary Public and Soldier", "Fine Sentence, Proud Madman", and "A Near Relation to Tudescos" [i. e. German Jews], Over them hovers a goat-footed devil who is saying: 'To tendre cuidado de mis hyos" (I will take care of my sons). To the left of the table four physicians, evidently the medical staff of Beth Holim, are standing: Hypocrates, Galenus, Dr. Caga Fuego, and "a famous operator". Between
also contains a reference to the valley in question: "Jagers hebben altijd het heimwee naar een dal Josaphats van het door hen geschoten wild." Here it evidently means "the place where all who are dead will be gathered".
x) There can be no doubt that the engraver wrote "A" instead of "a". It is clear from the context that a preposition connected with the ablative is required here. Moreover I. de C. S. are the initials of Dr. Jacob de Castro Sarmento (1692—1762), one of the persons caricatured on the print. He was driven from Portugal by the Inquisition in 1720 and fled to London, where he settled as a doctor. In 1730 he became a member of the Royal Society and in 1739 the Aberdeen University conferred the degree of M. D. upon him.
2) The meaning of the Latin inscription, as it stands, is obscure. A change of "concinati" into "concinata", which would then refer back to Pharmacopoeia, would perhaps give a more plausible rendering.
*) By P. de L. the caricaturist probably means Phelipe de la Cour, as he and Jacob de Castro Sarmento are the only two members of the medical staff of the hospital who had taken their doctor's degrees (see notegonp. 129). The engraver presumably read "de Lacour" for "de la Cour".



the latter and Hypocrates there is a serpent which is called "A Stutus". We may take it for granted that the author meant "astutus", because the word "stutus" does not exist. and because "astutus" means "subtle", a quality which has always been attributed to the serpent in connection with Gen. 3 v. i: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field." On the print "a stutus" is a noun signifying "one who is subtle."
Behind the doctors we see a beadle, and near him, in the door-opening, the apothecary, who is embracing a girl.1) Over the heads of the amorous couple appears a sentence in Hebrew: peru urebu (Be fruitful and multiply).2) In the foreground — to the left — are "four gentlemen endowed with virtue, justice, charity and compassion." 3) They are protected by an angel, who is repeating the words of the devil: "Io tendre cuidado de mis Hyos." Behind the table are a clerk, who is holding up some books, and an obscene pedlar, who is selling "gloves against mercurial pills", which he carries on a tray supported by a strap round his neck. He is making love to the stout matron of the hospital. In the background are seen the people who wish to be admitted into the institution: a pregnant woman, who is about to run away, a German Jew, a Berberisko 4), an Italian Jew, and another person who has nothing especial to distinguish him. 5) Near the door leading to the cemetery there
x) Rubens informs us that "early in 1749 the apothecary, Mordechay de la Penha, was accused of acts of indecency, from which he was absolved by 9 votes to 2, and a resolution that he should be dismissed was defeated by 8 votes to 3."
2) Gen. 1, v. 28.
3) With reference to these gentlemen Rubens remarks: "They are presumably four persons who were in disagreement with the remainder of the committee, and perhaps the authors of the caricature, but they cannot be identified with any degree of certainty."
4) In the fifteenth century many Jews, who had been driven from Spain and Portugal, settled in Barbary.
5) These are all people who were not qualified for admission under the rules of the hospital, which "provided, inter alia, that women were not to be received more than one month before child-birth, and that the persons entitled to benefit were 'the poor professing the Portuguese Je wish Religion. Dr. Vaz da Silva [one of the doctors of the institution] was on two occasions reprimanded by the committee for recommending patients who were not eligible under the rules, and at a meeting of the Grand Committee in 1748 it was stated that neglect on his part had caused great disorder in the hospital (Rubens).



is a second beadle. So much for the motley group of actors in this peculiar drama.
We shall now quote the conversation of the figures of the caricature in the order indicated by the numbers on the print.
1. First Go vernor *): Todos seran admitidos (All shall be
admitted).
2. Second Go vernor 2): Que mueran los de fueran 3) (Let
those outside die).
3. Third Governor4): La mitad de mi ganancia para esta
asistensia (The half of my earnings for this assistance).
4. Fourth Governor 5): Nose admita Tudesco (The German
ought not to be admitted). 6)
5. Fifth Governor '): Lo 8) Locos ayuda para todos (The
fools! [we have] help for all).
6. Hypocrates9): Por Dios que est10) venemo. (By
God, it is poison!)
1) Rubens says that this figure is intended for Isaac Nieto (1687—1774), who was for a time the Ecclesiastical Head of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in London, and who was acting as Parnass (warden) of the hospital in 1749.
2) This is, according to Rubens, probably Joseph Diaz Fernandes (1709—1786).
а) We should expect "los que fueran", or "los de fuera".
4) This figure is meant for Moses Gomes Serra, who probably died in 1782 (Rubens).
5) The fourth governor is said to represent Joseph Jessurun Rodrigues, who died in 1766 (Rubens).
б) In this connection it may be remarked that in those days the relations between Ashkenazim (the Tudescos and Polaccos) and Sephardim (the Portuguese Jews) were often strained.
7) This figure (the monkey) is probably Abraham da Fonseca, who had been President when the hospital was first established (Rubens).
8) "Lo" should be "Los".
9) Hypocrates (properly spelt Hippocrates) was a famous Greek doctor who flourished about 400 B.C. He probably represents Dr. Phelipe de la Cour, alias Abraham Gomes Ergas (d. 1786), who graduated at Leyden in 1733, and had a fashionable practice in London and Bath; he was one of the four doctors — Jacob de Castro Sarmento, Joseph Vaz da Silva and Jacob de Castro (Castre) being the others — who had volunteered their services free for the hospital (Rubens).
10) "Est" is the Latin form for Spanish "es".
9



7. Galenus *): Por Dios no es venemo. (By God,
it is no poison!)
8. Doctr. Caga Fuego 2): Es venemo y no es venemo (It is
poison and it is not poison).
9. A Famous Operator 3): Chonorea y morbo Gallico para todos
Sns (Gonorrhoea and syphilis for all
gentlemen).4)
10. A Stutus 5): Grand fatalidad perder con quatro
Matadores. (How unfortunate to lose
with four murderers!)
11. Matrona6): Vms quieren thea o caffee? (Will
you have tea or coffee, gentlemen?)
12. The pedlar: Tomaio mi querida de mi alma
Take it7), beloved of my soul).
1) Galenus [Galen] was a celebrated Roman doctor, who lived about 175 A. D. He is probably meant for Dr. Joseph Vaz da Silva, who occupied a lower position in the hospital than the others (Rubens).
2) This name has been supposed to be a skit on that of Dr. Jacob de Castro Sarmento and has been connected with Cacafogo, a character in Beaumont and Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife (Rubens). The last part of this conjecture seems highly probable, for the list of figures of this play not only mentions Cacafogo, a rich usurer, but also a Spanish colonel, called Don Juan de Castro.
3) According to Rubens, this is presumably Jacob de Castro (Castre), the surgeon (1704—1789).
4) "Dr. Vaz da Silva," says Rubens, "had been very lax in attending to his duties, and this conversation suggests that one of his prescriptions had proved fatal."
6) It is somewhat difficult to account for the presence of the serpent. In view of the fact that a hospital and several doctors are pilloried here, we are inclined to see in this animal Aesculapius, the god of the medical art, who, after listening to the conversation of the four doctors, who are contradicting each other, complains: "How unfortunate to lose with four murderers." Obviously there had been a scandal (see note 4) and medicines had been administered which had upset — indeed, probably killed — some patients. When on the other hand we consider that the animal is named "astutus", which means "one who is subtle", we cannot but conclude that the caricaturist thought of the talking serpent in Gen. 3, v. 1, the more so as the devil also occurs on the print, although in this case the word "murderer" presents difficulties. "Matador" also signifies "trump", but this meaning does not seem to solve the problem either, at any rate not in the last supposition. The serpent is perhaps employed to suggest both Aesculapius and Genesis, but is not intended to correspond to or be compared with either literally.
6) The Matron of the hospital was Raquel Mendil, wife of the dispenser Judah Mendil (Rubens).
') "It" evidently refers to one of the "gloves".



13- The clerk: Los libros estan acgui perro adonde
esta o dinero? (Here are the books, but where is the money?)1) 14. The beadle2): Io lavo todos (I wash all).
21. First patiënt 3): Io soy pobre Barbarisco (I am a
poor Berberisko).4)
22. Second patiënt: Io soy desgraciado Italiano (I am an
unfortunate Italian).
23. Third patiënt: Io soi Tudesco mi padre Portuges y
madre Tudesca (I am a German, my father a Portuguese and my mother a German).
24. Fourth patiënt: Supplicamos favor (We pray for
mercy).
25. Fifth patiënt 8): Peste a VM no quiero estar ne 6) ese (a pregnant woman) inferno (A plague on you, I will not
be in this heil).
These, then, are the words which, according to the caricaturist, were spoken by the governors, the doctors and the patients of the hospital. The print does not seem to represent a special meeting or occurrence, but probably pillories the irregularities which took place in the institution during the years 1748 and 1749. 7) Neither the date 8), nor the name of the author are mentioned on the engraving. The catalogue of the British
1) The clerk was Jacob de Paz, who was appointed secretary instead of Moses Pereyra de Castro, who, after being reprimanded by the committee shortly after the erection of the hospital, had been dismissed towards the end of 1748 (Rubens).
2) The beadle was called Isaque Halfon (Rubens).
8) The figures indicated by the numbers 15—20 do not take any part in the conversation.
4) See notes 4 and 5 on p. 128.
6) The woman, who appears to be very angry, is about to leave the hospital by the door leading to the cemetery.
6) "Ne" is the Portuguese equivalent for Spanish "en".
') Rubens thinks that the scene represented on the print is probably the meeting of the Grand Committee early in 1749, when the conduct of the apothecary was discussed.
8) Now that the Minute Books of the Beth Holim have been consulted, it is not difficult to fix the date of the engraving. As the apothecary was accused early in 1749, and as the print appeared before the play, which was published in the same year, the picture must also date from 1749.



Museum ascribes the caricature to Hogarth, but there is not the least corroborative evidence to support this assertion. All that we can say of the author is that, in all likelihood, he was a Gentile, in spite of his threefold attempt to delude us into the belief that he was an Israelite: at the bottom of the print it says that its conception was due to Ribi Tarson, that it was painted by Ribi Zadok and engraved by Ribi Bagbug. The three names, which probably refer to fictitious persons, are all of Semitic origin, and as for the word "Ribi", this is the Sephardic form of "Rabbi". The engraver can hardly have been a Jew, because his production suggests a skilful and wellinformed artist, and we do not know of any Jew of the date who had acquired a reputation in that profession. Moreover, it is difficult to imagine a Jew who, on account of a few irregularities in a Jewish hospital, holds the entire institution up to ridicule, and drags the names of well-known persons attached to it through the mire.
There is reason to assume that the dialogue of the farce was an expanded form of the conversation just quoted. The contents of the play were probably even more objectionable than the highly offensive inscriptions on the print; otherwise the Biographia Dramatica would not speak of "the most abusive jargon ever seen".



CHAPTER IX
CHARLES MACKLIN AND HIS LOVE A LA MODE
For the first ten years after the publication of The Jerusalem Infirmary there is not much of importance to be recorded in the history of the eighteenth century stage Jew. The only thing worth mentioning is the fact that for the first time a Jew tries his hand at the writing of plays. Moses Mendez, a rich stockbroker, who died in 1758, produced four dramatic pieces. The successful ballad opera The Doublé Disappointment (1746) was his first theatrical work, followed in 1749 by The Chaplet, an opera, which also became very popular, and two musical entertainments Robin Hood (1750) and The Shepherd's Lottery (1751), which however did not achieve great success.
That hitherto Jews had hardly ever contributed to English literature may be explained by the circumstance that they were not allowed to participate in the life of the nation; being shut out from its culture and development, they could not be its interpreters. J) Towards the close of the century, when deep-rooted prejudices were gradually giving way to broader views and the Jews were placed on a more equal footing with their neighbours, mention of them in literature becomes more frequent. In other departments of public life they had already appeared at an earlier date. As we saw in the preceding chapter, Jacob de Castro Sarmento had become a member of the Royal Society in 1730 and nine years later the University of Aberdeen had conferred the degree of M. D. upon him. About the same time Anthony da Costa had been appointed director of the Bank of England; he was the first Jew to be called to this high office. 2) Some years later Emanuel Mendez da Costa became librarian to the Royal Society. 3) Joseph Salvador, the famous philanthropist, who flourished about the year 1750, was the first Jewish director of the Dutch East India
*) Calisch, op. cit., p. 27-
2) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 265.
3) The Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. VIII, p. 171.



Company x), and Sampson Gideon, the great financier, was the intimate friend of Sir Robert Walpole, England's first Prime Minister, to whom he gave advice in all monetary transactions. 2) And last but not least, throughout the eighteenth century England produced many well-known Jewish physicians. 3)
The favourable reception of Mendez' plays, which, strangely enough, contain nothing of Jewish interest, must of course be ascribed to the fact that they were not without merit, and no worse than other successful dramas of those days. That they were not received with prejudice, as one would at first expect, is less surprising, when we glance at the history of England in 1745, the year before the publication of The Doublé Disappointment. 4)
After the ten years of silence on the part of the dramatists, during which time the passing of the Naturalization Bill in 1753, and its repeal in the following year again focused attention on the Jews, Macklin's Love a la Mode heralds a long series of plays in which the least favourable parts are invariably assigned to the Jews, and for which leading dramatists of the day as Macklin, Foote, Sheridan, Cumberland, Andrews, O'Keeffe, Morton, and several anonymous playwrights must be held responsible. The atmosphere created in and about the year I753 by agitators who took advantage of popular prejudices, remained hostile for a considerable time, and the theatre, the mirror of the age, faithfully reflected this renewed spirit of intolerance.
The name of Charles Macklin (1697?—1797) is frequently associated with the eighteenth century stage Jew. It is said that he was dismissed from Lincoln's Inn Fields for suggesting to represent Shylock as a tragic figure5); in 1738 he played the part of Beau Mordecai in The Harlot's Progress at Drury Lane; and three years afterwards he revived The Merchant of Venice there, with a new and masterly treatment of Shylock which he continued to enact until 1789. In 1742 he personated
1) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 264.
2) ibid., p. 270.
3) See the list of famous Jews in The Jewish Ene., vol. VIII, pp. 170—173.
4) For the part played by the Jews in the events of this year see p. 43.
6) Landa, op. cit., p. 113.



the Jew Zorababel in Fielding's Miss Lucy in Town at Drury Lane. *) Seventeen years later he produced at the same theatre his farce Love a la Mode, one of the characters of which is a Jew called Mr. Mordecai. Mrs. Macklin, too, had experience of the Jew in drama. In Miss Lucy in Town she played Mrs. Midnight2), and in 1758, when Farquhar's The Twin-Rivals was revived at Drury Lane, she took the part of Mrs. Mandrake, who, as the reader will remember, relates the story of the Jew Mr. Moabite. Small wonder therefore that in Love a la Mode Mordecai is once nicknamed "the Moabite". 3)
The year 1741 was a very memorable one for Macklin; for he then won great fame by his interpretation of Shylock as a tragic character. It will be remembered that since 1701 Granville's Jew of Venice, in which the famous comedian Dogget acted Shylock as a mere buffoon, had held the stage. Macklin, however, saw this character with other eyes; but on intimating his attention to play it seriously, he was laughed at by his friends and colleagues.4) When the performance was over, however, he had suddenly become a famous man. "So unprecedented," Congreve5) writes, "was his success in this difficult character, so exquisite a force and colouring did he display in personating the vindictive Israelite, that the loudest bursts of applause filled the theatre, nor ceased, but with the fall of the curtain. During this performance, a gentleman in the pit (said to be Mr. Pope) exclaimed:
This is the Jew
Which Shakespeare drew." 6)
2) See p. 118.
а) See p. 118.
3) Act I, sc. i.
4) Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Comedian, London, 1804, p. 91.
б) F. A. Congreve, Authentic Memoirs of the late Mr. Charles Machlin, Comedian, London, 1798, p. 17.
6) This distich is also quoted by J. T. Kirkman (Memoirs of the Life of C. Macklin, London, 1799, I, p. 264), but it is doubtful whether Pope is responsible for it (Dict. of Nat. Biog. XXXV, p. 180). Pope is also said to be the author of a variant of the same couplet. A lady had requested Pope to write Macklin's epitaph. The poet answered: "That I will, madam, nay, I will give it now:
Here lies the Jew
That Shakespeare drew." (Kirkman, op. cit., II, p. 428 )



Macklin's two best plays are The Man of the World, and Love in a Maze, but here we are chiefly interested in Love a la Mode, a farce in two acts, which was produced as an afterpiece to The Merchant of Venice at Drury Lane on Dec. 12, 1759-
The very improbable but none the less interesting plot is soon told. The characters — there are six in all — belong to no less than four different races. Sir Archy MacSarcasm, a haughty and avaricious Scotch knight, Groom, a foolish English Squire, who squanders all his money on horses, dogs and cocks, Beau Mordecai, a foppish Jew, and Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan, a wild but capable Irish officer, pay their addresses to the beautiful Charlotte, the ward of Sir Theodore Goodchild, who is the uncle of Sir Callaghan. When all the suitors are in Sir Theodore's house in order to partake of a dinner, the news arrivés that Charlotte's guardian has suddenly gone bankrupt. As the young lady is no longer a rich heiress now, all her lovers resign their pretensions, except the generous and congenial Irishman, who of course does not meet with a repulse when he proposes to Charlotte. Sir Theodore now informs his happy nephew, to the mortification of the other suitors, that the bankruptcy and the ruin of the lady's fortune had only been invented with a view to finding out which of them was the disinterested lover. The play is probably meant as an illustration of the belief that the just will be rewarded and the unjust punished, for the Irishman, blowing his own trumpet1), says at the end of the second act: "The whole business together is something like the catastrophe of a stage play, where knaves and fools are disappointed, and honest men rewarded."
Most of the characters of this farce, though well-drawn, are not living persons, but mere types or farcical beings. The author gives each of them one dominating characteristic: the Englishman his passion for horses, the Scotchman his propensity for boasting of his illustrious progenitors 2), and the
J) Macklin might have prevented this by putting the sentence quoted into the mouth of Sir Theodore. I doubt whether the author intentionally spoilt this favourite character of his at the very last moment, by making him sing his own praises.
2) The following humorous passage, in which the Jews are also mentioned



Jew his ardent desire for establishing a reputation as "a wit, a gentleman and a man of taste." The Irishman comes off best, nor is this very surprising, for Macklin was a native of Ireland himself.1)
Before considering the characteristic features of Mordecai, we shall first give the opinions of the other figures in the play concerning him. They almost vie with each other in reviling and ridiculing the Jew. Charlotte is the first to offer her uncomplimentary remarks. When speaking of her suitors, she says to her guardian: "No poor damsel has been besieged by such a group of odd mortals. Let me review my equipage of lovers — the first upon the list is a beau Jew, who, in spite of nature and education, sets up for a wit, a gentleman, and a man of taste." 2)
The attacks of Sir Archy on the Jew are perhaps the fiercest of all. He greets him with "my chield o' circumcision" and my bonny Eesraelite", and when Mordecai has left the room for a moment, he and Charlotte indulge in the following conversation:
Sir A. What a fantastical baboon this Eesraelite maks o'him-
sel'! The fallow is the mockery o' the hale nation. Charl. Why, to say the truth, he is entertaining, Sir Archy. Sir A. Oh! yes, he is ridiculous, therefore very usefu' in society; for wherever he comes, there maun be laughter .... the fallow's walthy, 'tis true; yes, yes, he is walthy, but he is a reptile — a mere reptile! 3)
In another place he calls him "a wandering Eesraelite, a casualty, a mere casualty, sprung frae annuities, bills, bubbles, bears, and lottery-tickets .... this off spring of accident and mammon." 4)
in a disparaging way, may serve as a specimen: "In Scotland a' oor nobeelity are sprung frae monarchs, warriors, heroes, and glorious achievements: now, here in the south, ye are a' sprung frae sugar-hogsheads, rum-puncheons, woo'-packs, hop-sacks, earn-bars, and tar-jackets; in short, ye are a composition of Jews, Turks and refugees, and o'a' the commercial vagrants o' the land and sea, a sort of amphibious breed ye are" (Act I, sc. i).
J) The Biographia Dramatica (Baker, Reed, Jones, London, 1812, vol. II, p. 281) speaks of "the writer's national partiality".
2) Love & la Mode, Act I, sc. 1.
») ibid.
') ibid.



The Irishman, Sir Callaghan, does not spare Mordecai either; but in his favour it must be said that he only shows fight when he is attacked, as when, at the instigation of Sir Archy, the Jew tries to make fun of the officer by asking him foolish
questions about battles and generals, the latter retorts: " 
hold your tongue about generals, Mr. Mordecai, and go and mind your lottery-tickets, and your cent. per cent. in Change Alley." And af ter Charlotte and the Jew have gone out of the room, the Irishman and the Scotchman regale us with the following dialogue:
Sir C. I find he is a very impertinent coxcomb, this same
beau Mordecai.
Sir A. Yes, sir, he is a d—d impudent rascal.
Sir C. I assure you, I had a great mind to be upon the qui vive with him, for his jokes and mockeries, but that the lady was by.
Sir A. Yes, he is a cursed impudent fallow! Because he is suffered to speak till a man o' fashion at Bath and Tunbridge, and other public places, the rascal always obtrudes himsel' upon ye. *)
Squire Groom also acquits himself well. When telling Charlotte about Bob, a friend of hers, he says: "I shall never forget it, poor Bob went out of the course, and ran over two attorneys, an exciseman, and a little beau Jew, Mordecai's friend, that you used to laugh at so immoderately at Bath; a little, fine, dirty thing, with a chocolate-coloured phiz, just like Mordecai's." 2)
Contemptuous nicknames for the Jew are not wanting; the drunken squire calls him "little Shadrach", and Sir Archy speaks of him as "the Moabite". Sir Theodore is the only person who refrains from railing at Mordecai; nevertheless he says to his ward: "Ay, laugh at him as much as you will."
One may be astonished that as late as the year 1759 abusive language like this could be publicly flung at defenceless fellowcitizens with impunity. To understand this we must consider
1) Love & la Mode, Act I, sc. i.
2) ibid., Act II, sc. i.



the position 01 the ünghsh Jews at that time. in consequence of the repeal of the Naturalization Bill their social and intellectual condition had gradually sunk to a very low ebb. Their religion also suffered from the unsuccessful attempt at emancipation. Dr. Jacobs, the well-known Jewish historian, writes in this connection: "The influence of the repeal of the bill on the Sephardic Jews of England, who were chiefly affected by it, was deplorable. Sampson Gideon, the head of the Community, determined to bring up his children as Christians, and his example was followed by many of the chief families during the remainder of the century. A general feeling of insecurity came over the community .... The Bernals, Lopezes, Ricardos, Disraelis, Aguilars, Basevis, and Samudas, gradually severed their connection with the synagogue and allowed their children to grow up without any religion, or in the Established Church, which gave them an open career in all the professions." x) Those who remained faithful to the old religion were chiefly artisans or pedlars, a despised class of people, who feit themselves outlaws, and could therefore not be expected to raise their voices against the offensive jargon of Macklin's popular farce. Neither would the public at large, which was still steeped in prejudice, remonstrate, for the author of Love a la Mode knew quite well that a play in which a ridiculous Jew figured would meet with enthusiastic applause from that quarter, and that even a caustic utterance such as Charlotte's "in spite of nature and education", in which we cannot but see some poignant sarcasm on Jews in general, would go unchallenged. Persons who would champion the cause of the Jews probably feared that they would incur the hatred of the populace or run the risk of being accused of bribery. The bishops who had voted for the bill in 1753 had also been libelled, and insulted in the streets. 2) Of George the Second, who was then nearly seventy-six years old, and had discontinued his visits to the theatre for some time, we read 3) that he had heard so much of Love a la Mode, that he had sent for the manuscript. When it had been read to him, he appeared to be very much
x) The Jewish Encyclopaedia, V, p. 170.
2) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 275.
3) F. A. Congreve, op. cit., p. 17; cf. also Kirkman, op. cit., I, p. 403.



pleased with the play and especially with the Irishman's triumph over his rivals. But we do not hear of any protest on the part of His Majesty against the injurious language, although it would no doubt have embittered his Jewish subjects. The old King, who had been a German until his thirty-first year, and had remained a stranger to his people ever afterwards, as he did not even understand their language and played no part in English politics 1), was perhaps the very last person in whom the Jews saw a champion.
It might be contended that the Scotch, too, are made an object of ridicule, for which the author incurs less blame. It is true that we are perhaps not so quick to take offence at this; but it should be borne in mind that the Jews were practically a defenceless and rightless people, unlike the Scotch, who were quite able to defend themselves; as, indeed, they actually did, for in 1760 an anonymous pamphlet appeared entitled: A Scotsman's Remarks on the Farce of Love a la Mode. Besides, in holding the Jews up to derision, Macklin voices the sentiments of the multitude, expressing his hatred as well as theirs, whereas, when satirizing the Scotch, he only vents his personal antipathy towards this people, caused, it is said, by his being ill-treated as a boy by a Scotch schoolmaster. 2) Nor should the fact be overlooked that the jeers destined for the Jews are couched in unequivocal terms, which are apt to rouse the indignation of every unbiassed reader, while the mockeries intended for the Scotch are mostly expressed in such a humorous way, that the author's only object seems to be to excite laughter.
It is highly interesting to note that the unknown writer of the above-mentioned pamphlet also takes the Jews under his protection. On page 8 he remarks that the account given of "the Jew beau Mordecai, as well as the treatment of him throughout, is idly and grossly insulting to a body of people, since the Jew-act has not taken place, and who ought to meet with better treatment from a man who owed his getting any footing on the stage to the supposition of his having well represented one of their community." In another place (p. 24)
*) Green says: " as political figures the two Georges are simply absent from our history" (op. cit., II, p. 680, Everyman edition).
2) Did. of Nat. Biog., XXXV, p. 179.



he exclaims: "What an unnatural passion this preternatural author has for Jew beaus!"
The ungracious language of which all the persons in Love a la Mode avail themselves to show their comtempt of Mordecai, does not quite tally with the impression which we get of the Jew when we consider his behaviour. It is true, he is an insufferable dandy, and he resigns his pretensions to the lady when he hears that her fortune is gone, but in the latter respect he is not worse than his rivals, who do the very same thing, and in a much more insolent way. Cooke x) speaks of Mordecai as an unfeeling Jew, but this qualification, though correct in itself, is unfair, when we compare his conduct with that of the Scotchman and of the Englishman, who show as much callousness, if not more, in the impudent manner in which they back out of their promises. Yet Cooke does not call them unfeeling persons. Kirkman 2) thinks Mordecai an excellent picture of a little, cunning Jew broker. It cannot be denied that the Jew possesses the latter quality, but it seems to have escaped Kirkman's notice that Sir Archy, the intriguing Scotchman, appears to be equally cunning. Criticisms like these prove that even about the year 1800 [Kirkman's Memoirs were published in 1799, and those of Cooke in 1804] biographers, a class of writers who might be expected to be unprejudiced 3), could not or perhaps would not judge impartially where a Jew was concerned.
The more or less recognized sources for the title, plot and characters of Love d la Mode deserve hardly any consideration here, as none of them have Jewish figures. Suffice it to mention them briefly: Theophilus Cibber's The Lover (1730), Thomas Sheridan's Captain O'Blunder; or, The Brave Irishman (1745), and Thomas Southland's Love d la Mode (1663).
A fairly important source, which has been entirely overlooked,
x) Cooke, op. cit., p. 232.
2) Kirkman, op. cit., I, p. 401.
s) In Kirkman's Memoirs (II, p. 437) we find a very unfriendly reference to the Jews. When eulogizing Macklin's liberality he says: "He expended a great part of his property in the education of his son and daughter; and, instead of hoarding up large sums of money, as he might have done, he liberally lent them out to his necessitous friends and acquaintances, and never was repaid a shilling. In this he acted very unlike a Jew; for he recovered neither principal nor interest."



is Dr. Johnson's story of Leviculus in The Rambler of Dec. 14, 1751. x) It tells of a young fortune-hunter, a foppish merchant, who frequents the company of wits, hums fashionable songs, and proposes to a rich and beautiful heiress, who keeps him in uncertainty for a considerable time and ultimately marries an ensign. The corresponding parts of Johnson's story and Macklin's play are so strikingly analogous, that one cannot but be astonished that the resemblance has not been perceived before. Mordecai, it will be remembered, is also a merchant, a fortune-hunter and a fop. He, too, prefers the company of wits, sings Italian airs, and courts a beautiful heiress, who does not take him seriously and eventually marries an officer. Macklin found no Jew in this source either, unless we assume that he did not know any Latin 2) and mistook the name Leviculus for a word of Hebrew origin.
From Cibber's The Harlot's Progress Macklin no doubt borrowed the name Mordecai. One of the characters in Taste (1752), a comedy by Foote, a friend of Macklin's, mentions 3) the same name in connection with a Jewish broker, called Mordecai Lazarus. 4) It is not impossible that this name influenced Macklin, as the Mordecai of Love a la Mode is also a broker. I think it more probable, however, that not only Foote but also his friend borrowed the name from Cibber's pantomime, for Macklin had himself acted the latter's Beau Mordecai at Drury Lane in 1738.
If we are to believe Colman and Thornton in The Connoisseur of Jan. 31, 1754, Macklin also attempted to study contemporary Jews. We read here that "when a comedian, celebrated for his excellence in the part of Shylock, first undertook that character, he made daily visits to the centre of business, the 'Change and the adjacent coffee-houses, that by a frequent intercourse and conversation with 'the unforeskinned race', he might habituate himself to their air and deportment." 5) But,
1) The story occurs in The British Essayists, op., cit. XXII, p. 113 ff.
2) Lat. leviculus means "a vain little man".
3) Taste, Act II, sc. 1.
4) See pp. 122, 147.
6) The British Essayists, op. cit., vol. XXX, p. 1. Aithough the name of Macklin is not mentioned here, we may safely assume that the authors refer to Macklin's revival of Shylock in 1741.



though Macklin may have had some knowledge of living Jews, his picture of Mordecai is chiefly composed of elements derived from literary sources. Similarly, in Dryden's Love Triumphant the Jew is an apostate, and the lady to whom he pays his addresses is a Christian. His wealth and his foppishness are no novel features either, for Cibber's Mordecai is also a rich dandy. The latter characteristic is especially utilized by Macklin to make the Jew the laughing-stock of everybody.
In one respect Mordecai differs from the stage Jews of the first half of the century: Macklin does not copy the licentious Jew of Hogarth's literary imitators, but returns to the ridiculous Jew of Dryden and Granville.
When Macklin was over eighty years old, he brought out his Man of the World (Covent Garden, May 10, 1781). In this play he again places the Jew in an unfavourable light. In Act II, sc. 1, Lady Rodolpha, describing to Sir Pertinax the company at Bath, also mentions a Jew and a bishop who were sitting in a retired part of the room:
Sir Pert. A Jew and a bishop! a devilish guid connection that; and pray, my lady, what were they about? Lady Rod. Why, the bishop was striving to convert the Jew — while the Jew, by intervals, was slyly picking up intelligence fra the bishop, about the change in the meenistry, in hopes of making a stroke in the stock.
Sir Pert. Admirable! I honour the smouse — hah! it was develish clever of him, develish clever [This is said to Lord Lumbercourt],
Lord Lum. Yes, yes; the fellow kept a sharp look-out. I think
it was a fair trial on both sides, Mr. Egerton. Egerton. True, my lord, but the Jew seems to have been in the fairer way to succeed.
Not only as a dramatist, but also as an actor Macklin showed that he was anything but favourably disposed towards the Jews. The fact that he himself enacted the part of Sir Archy, who, as we have seen, is very prodigal of invective for Mordecai and makes him his special butt for ridicule, may be called suggestive; and further, when playing the character of Shylock,



Macklin probably gave utterance to his hatred of the Jews. If we are to credit several critics — most of them contemporaries, who witnessed Macklin's performances — we may conclude that he portrayed Shylock as a man of fierce disposition, and not, as modern actors interpret the part, as an intensely tragic figure who is chiefly the victim of wrong. Congreve x) speaks of "the vindictive Israelite", Edwin Booth 2) of "the uncanny Jew", Raspe3) of "the unnatural and abominable character of Shylock", Cumberland4) of "this blood-thirsty villain", and "the odious character of Shylock", and Furness 6) sums up Macklin's Shylock performance in the phrase "snarling malignity". We are also told6) that the character of the Jew was made so fearful in the trial scene, that George the Second, discussing the means of cowing the House of Commons is reported to have said to Walpole: "What do you think of sending them to the theatre to see that Irishman play Shylock?" Maria Edgeworth, in her novel Harrington, into which she introduced Macklin himself7), refers to "a malicious, revengeful, ominous-looking Shylock." 8) In his Life of Macklin Cooke 9) writes: "There was such an iron-visaged look, such a relentless savage cast of manners, that the audience seemed to shrink from the character." Lichtenberg10) pens in a letter dated Dec. 2, 1775: "It is not to be denied that the sight of this Jew suffices to awaken at once, in the best-regulated mind, all the prejudices of childhood against this people .... To see a man thus moved, who had hitherto been a calm, determined villain, is fearful." And lastly, there is Kirkman u), who speaks of "the malevolence, the villainy, and the diabolical atrocity of the character." In another place12) he remarks:
1) Congreve, op. cit., p. 17.
2) Furness, op. cit., vol. VII, p. 383.
3) Raspe, Preface to Nathan the Wise, London, 1781.
*) The Observer, No. 38 (1785); The British Essayists, XXXVIII, p. 254.
s) Furness, op. cit., p. 346.
6) Dict. of Nat. Biog., XXXV, p. 180.
') Harrington (1817), ch. V.
8) ibid., ch. II.
") Cooke, op. cit., p. 404.
10) The letter is quoted by Furness, op. cit., pp. 374, 375.
n) Kirkman, op. cit., I, p. 260.
12) ibid., I, p. 261.



"He is drawn, what we think man never was, all shade, not a gleam of light: subtle, selfish, fawning, irascible and tyrannic."
As hitherto no satisfactory explanation has been given of tb is fierce Shylock, we should make an attempt to account for it. We venture to put forward three reasons. In the first place, Macklin had probably taken a hint from Nicholas Rowe, who had written as early as 1709: "I cannot but think it [i. e. the part of Shylock] was designed tragically by the author. There appears in it such a deadly spirit of revenge, such a savage fierceness and fellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the style or characters of comedy." x) This would explain at the same time what it was that first suggested to Macklin to replace Shylock the buffoon by Shylock the avenger. When once he had conceived the idea to play this figure as a serious character, his true dramatic instinct and his histrionic gifts enabled him to perform his self-imposed task successfully. The second reason for Macklin's fierce interpretation is perhaps to be found in the actor's own quick and violent temper, as a result of which, as his biographers teil us, he was in constant difficulties. Once he even killed a colleague in a quarrel about a wig. In the third place — and this motive appears to me not the least important one — when rendering Shylock uncanny, fearful, savage, etc., Macklin allowed himself to be carried away by his hatred of the Jews, and also tried to prejudice his audience against them. 2) That such acting was bound to affect popular thought will be readily admitted. lts effect may be illustrated by the following quotation from Philipson: "Whenever in the eighteenth century Shylock was performed, the passions of the multitude were excited to such a pitch that it was found necessary to produce, immediately thereafter, Nathan the Wise, that this might act as an antidote towards quieting the aroused
!) N. Rowe, Some Account of the Life, etc. of Mr. William Shakespear, London, 1709, p. XIX. Cf. Furness, op. cit., VII, p. 421.
2) It is impossible for me to believe what Dr. Small says of Macklin: *'.... he is credited with ha ving started the practice of making the audience feel at times a sympathy for the despised race" (S. A. Small, op. cit., p. 17). In another place (p. 63) this author speaks of "the diabolical figure workedby Macklin." I confess I do not understand how the interpretation of acharacter like this could be productive of sympathetic feelings for the Jews.
10



passions which might have culminated in excesses involving great danger to the unfortunate Jews." ]) This is no longer possible in our days: the time has passed when a performance of Shylock could excite such passions. Now it will only evoke admiration for Shakespeare's genius.
i) D. Philipson, op. cit., p. 8. The author evidently refers here to Germany, for Lessing's Nathan the Wise was never acted in England during the eighteenth century.



CHAPTER X
FOOTE'S SOCIAL SATIRES
The next dramatist who will engage our attention is Macklin's friend Samuel Foote (1720—1777). His most recent biographer, Professor M. M. Belden, describes him as "the author of some thirty comedies, an extraordinarily successful actor and theatrical manager, a man of striking individuality, daring, ruthless, incorrigible, irresistible." *) His plays do not rank very high; they have little more than ephemeral interest and are only valuable as portrayals of contemporary society. Most of them are satires of a social or personal character, in which the author gratifies his passion for exposing evil and caricaturing living figures. For this purpose Foote, like many other eighteenth century writers, frequently employs so-called "speaking names", whose use naturally leads to the portrayal of types and caricatures. It is not surprising that a dramatist with tendencies like these should also think the Jews suitable material for his satire. We need not wonder, then, that he repeatedly mentions them. Not only Jews, however, but also religious sects as Methodists and Quakers are made to run the gauntlet of his ridicule.
As has already been observed in the preceding section, Foote introducés into Taste (Drury Lane, Jan. II, I752)> one °f his earliest plays, a Jew broker, named Mordecai Lazarus, who is not among the regular dramatis personae, but appears on the scene 2) only once, in connection with an auction. He is not a speaking character, however. Though some other examples are still to follow in subsequent chapters, we may say by now that the name Mordecai plays an important part in the history of the eighteenth century stage Jew. It would leave a very disagreeable impression with the student of Jewish figures in English literature, but for George Eliott, in whose Daniël
*) M. M. Belden, The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote, Yale Studies in English, LXXX, 1929, p. 1.
2) Taste, Act II, sc. 1.



Deronda (1876) we meet a Jew named Mordecai, a saintly idealist, who has been called one of the finest characterizations in fiction. x)
In The Minor (Dublin, Jan. 28, 1760), which is the author's most famous play, and which caused much controversy on account of its fierce attack on the Methodists in the person of George Whitefield, the popular preacher, we have a similar case as in Taste. There is no Jew among the regular characters, but mention is made of one by a merchant, called Transfer, who speaks to Sir George about his unsuccessful attempts to procure money for him, and gives the following account of his visit to two money-lenders: "Lack-a-day, none to be had, I think. All the morning have I been on the hunt. There, Ephraim Barebones, the tallow-chandler, in Thames Street, used to be a never-failing chap; not a guinea to be got there. Then I tottled away to Nebuchadnezzar Zebulon, in the old Jewry, but it happened to be Saturday; and they never touch on the Sabbath, you know." 2) The first of these worthies was perhaps not meant to be a Jew, although his Christian name suggests a Hebrew origin3), and his surname makes one think of an avaricious usurer who stints himself so much that his bones show through his skin. As to the name of the second person — Nebuchadnezzar Zebulon — we could remark that in all likelihood this queer combination was meant to produce a comic effect at the expense of the Jews. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babyion who captured Jerusalem in the sixth century before Christ and carried the Jews away to his country.4) Zebulon, on the other hand, was a Hebrew: he was one of the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob.5) Although a confusion of Biblical and Hebrew names would perhaps not be impossible at a time of which Green declares "Never had religion seemed
*) Calisch, op. cit., p. 132.
2) The Minor, Act II, sc. 1.
®) Ephraim was the younger son of Joseph (Gen. 48, v. 1). In drawing conclusions from names like these we should be a little careful, because in eighteenth century literature Quakers and Methodists often bear Biblical names.
*) 2 Chronicles 36.
6) Gen. 35, v. 23. The name Zebulon is not new in the annals of the stage Jew. A variant of it — Zabulon — occurs in Fletcher'S The Custom of the Country (1622).



at a lower ebb",J) one can hardly assume that a dramatist like Foote, whose fondness for ridiculing different religions is conspicuous, could be so ignorant of things Jewish. 2) It seems therefore more probable that his design was to bring about a ludicrous effect, although in that case the audience was expected to possess more than superficial knowledge of Scriptural names, which may be somewhat doubtful at a period of spiritual deadness. There is another instance in The Commissary (Haymarket, June 10, 1765), where we find a reference to one Kitty Williams, who had married Mr. Abednego Potiphar, the Jew broker. 3) Again an absurd combination of two Biblical names one of which is Jewish. Abednego 4) was one of the three Hebrew youths — the others were Shadrach5) and Meshach — who came forth unharmed from the fiery fumace into which they had been thrown by Nebuchadnezzar for not worshipping the image he had set up. Potiphar was not a Jew, but the Egyptian official to whom Joseph was sold as a slave. 6) These queer combinations may have been suggested to Foote by Fielding, who, it will be remembered7), mentions in Don Quixote in England (1734) a Jew called Sir Gregory Nebuchaddonnezzar.
In The Commissary Foote satirizes profiteering. The stupid Zachary Fungus is the commissary, who has acquired a fortune as an army contractor — the play was produced two years af ter the cessation of the Se ven Years' War — and who now wishes to enter society. He and his brother Isaac, the
1) Green, op. cit., II, p. 692-
2) I found a striking example of ignorance of Biblical things in Cumberland's The Mysterious Husband (1783). In Act I, sc. 1, a character says: ". . . . 't was not a week ago this fellow held me by the ear with a detail as tedious as the courtship of Jacob and Rebecca." The author evidently means Isaac and Rebecca. There is no indication that he deliberately chose a wrong name to produce a comic effect.
3) The Commissary, Act III, sc. 1.
4) Daniël 3.
6) Later on this name was frequently used for unlovable Jewish characters. Examples will be given in the following sections; one instance has been mentioned in the preceding chapter (p. 138). When used for a non-Jew, the name also denotes a despicable figure. Shadrach Bodkin in Foote's The Orators (1762), whom we probably have to regard as a Methodist preacher, is a case in point.
•) Gen. 39, v. 1.
') See p. 117.



sensible and honest tallow-chandler, are the principal characters. Their Christian names would again suggest Jewish origin. This does not seem likely, however, for Zachary, when explaining to Isaac the reason why he learns fencing, says: "I'm got as rich as a Jew, and if any man dares to affront me, 1*11 let him know that my trade has been fighting." x) The expression "as rich as a Jew" occurs thrice in this play: twice in the conversation just referred to, and once in the first act, where Mrs. Mechlin, a procuress, says to Dolly, her niece: "Have not I tortured my brains for your good? Found you a husband as rich as a Jew?" The same phrase is used in Act II, sc. i of The Cozeners (1774), one of Foote's last plays; here Toby Aircastle says to Betsy Blossom: . father and mother have promised me to an Indian woman, as rich as a Jew." 2)
We now pass on to The Devil upon Two Sticks (Haymarket, May 30, 1768). It is based upon Le Sage's Le Diable Boiteux (1707), 3) which is a reworking of El Diablo Cojuelo (1641) of Luis Velez de Guevara. As one of the characters is a Jewish doctor, called Habakkuk, we shall have to consider the plot first. The source need not be consulted, as Foote only borrowed the accompanying action from it.
Sir Thomas Maxwell, the English consul at Madrid, has locked up his daughter Harriet to prevent her from eloping with Invoice, a clerk. When the young man has managed to get into her room, the lovers fly across the roof and enter the laboratory of a chemist. Here they are surprised by a voice, which appears to come from a bottle. Invoice smashes it, and the Devil emerges from it, who, out of gratitude for his release, conveys the couple to England. The rest of the play pillories the medical profession of those days in a ruthless manner. In London the Devil gives Invoice and Harriet an opportunity to listen to a conversation between several doctors and apothecaries, all of them licentiates, who have resolved to force their way into the residence of the College of Physicians, if intrance is refused them. Two of the doctors, Melchisedech Broadbrim4),
') The Commissary, Act. II, sc. 1.
2) Shaw employs the same expression in You never can teil (Act I).
3) Belden, op. cit., p. 125.
*) The names Melchisedech Broadbrim and Habakkuk (see p. 122) which



a Quaker, and Habakkuk, a Jew, do not play a very honourable part, at least in the opinion of their colleagues. One of the other physicians has been delegated to gain admission to the college in a peaceful way. This having been refused, it is resolved to use violence. At the very last moment, however, the Quaker and the Jew have religious scruples, the former, because he may not use a "carnal weapon", the latter for reasons which will be evident from the following quotation:
Sligo. Come, Dr. Habakkuk, will you march in the front or the rear?
Hab. Pardon me, doctor! I cannot attend you.
Sligo. What, d'ye draw back, when it comes to the push? Hab. Not at all; I would gladly join in putting these Philistines to flight; for I abhor them worse than hogs' puddings, in which the unclean beast and the blood are all jumbled together.
Sligo. Pretty food for all that.
Hab. But this is Saturday; and I dare not draw my sword
on the Sabbath.
Sligo. Then stay with your brother Melchisedech; for, though of different religions, you are both of a kidney. Come doctors; out with your swords!*)
Foote's design in this passage is obvious. He wants his audience to regard the Quaker and the Jew as hypocrites, who use conscientious scruples to cloak their cowardice. Religious zeal is for Foote equivalent to cant. No wonder, then, that Methodism is styled "spiritual quackery" by him. 2) After reading The Devil upon Two Sticks it is difficult to concur with the authors of the Biographia Dramatica, who give the following criticism of it: "This was one of the most successful of Mr. Foote's
do not occur in daily life, should also be regarded as attempts at producing a comic effect. The first name was taken from Gen. 14, v. 18, where we read that Abraham is blessed by Melchisedech, king of Salem. Foote probably borrowed the name Habakkuk from Reed's The Register Office (1761), which mentions a Jew called Zorobabel Habakuk (see p. 121).
') The Devil upon Two Sticks, Act III, sc. 1.
!) ibid.. Act III, sc. 3.



performances, fraught with wit, humour and satire of the most pleasant and inoffensive kind." x)
Besides his abhorrence of hogs' puddings and his strict observance of the Sabbath, Dr. Habakkuk is given one more notable characteristic, which, in the opinion of Foote, had naturally to be added to make him a real Jew, namely his passion for money. When the other physicians have gone away to carry out their plans, Dr. Broadbrim requests Dr. Habakkuk to go to a certain inn to take a message. He beseeches his colleague to "use dispatch", at which the latter answers: "As much as if I was posting to the Treasury, to obtain a large subscription for a new loan, or to bid for a lottery." 2)
It is remarkable that, where several of the characters of The Devil upon Two Sticks are caricatures of living persons3), the Jewish doctor does not seem to have had a prototype. But, as has already been said, there were several Jewish physicians in England at that time, so that, in view of the prevailing animosity against the Jews, it would not be difficult for Foote to make his spectators also relish the passage in which Dr. Habakkuk is satirized. Also, as the reader will remember from The Jerusalem Infirmary, it was not the first time that Jewish doctors were gibbeted in drama. In Foote's play not only the Jew's profession, but also his race and his religion are attacked. Just as in the case of Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress, the absence of a prototype which might fulfil the author's requirements, speaks well for the Jews.
The Nabob, which was produced at the Haymarket on June 29, 1772, is the next of Foote's comedies that must be investigated here, because it contains two Jewish characters: Moses Mendoza and Nathan. The play is a scathing satire on those persons who had unlawfully acquired great wealth in India, which they were squandering in the mother country. The Nabob is Sir Matthew Mite4), an arrogant, blustering and profligate
J) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 161.
2) The Devil upon Two Sticks, Act III, sc. 1.
■) Belden, op. cit., pp. 126, 128, 129.
*) This character is said to have been intended for General Richard Smith (Nicoll, op. cit., p. 175).



man of low birth, who tries to mount into society, and does not shrink from applying his ill-gotten wealth to the ruin of his neighbours. It may be imagined that such an individual is surrounded and courted by all sorts of fawning and cringing hangers-on, among whom are two Jewish brokers: Moses Mendoza1) and Nathan. Foote makes them speak a kind of dialect, which had already been heard on the stage a few months earlier, in Cumberland's The Fashionable Lover (Drary Lane, Jan. 1772). As has been shown in a preceding chapter, it had probably been invented as early as 1735 by the anonymous author of The Jew Decoyed. Since Foote is practically the first dramatist that makes a regular use of it — all his Jews speak this gibberish with the exception of Dr. Habakkuk — I may be pardoned for quoting a specimen of this novelty. The passage is a conversation between the Nabob and the two Jews. At the same time it may serve to throw some light upon their characters.
Mite. Oh, Nathan! are you there? you have split the stock,
as I bid you?
Nathan. I vas punctually obey your directions.
Mite. And I shall be in no danger of losing my list?
Nathan. Dat is safe, your honour; we ha ving noting to fear. Mite. Moses Mendoza! you will take care to qualify Peter Pratewell and Counsellor Quibble ? I shall want some speakers at the next General Court.
Moses. Please your honour, I shall be careful of dat.
Mite. How is the stock?
Moses. It vas got up the end of the veek.
Mite. Then sell out till you sink it to two and a half. Has
my advice been followed for burning the tea?
Moses. As to dat matter, I vas not inquire dat; I believe not. Mite. So, that commodity will soon be a drug. The English are too proud to profit by the practice of others.
*) The name Mendoza is given to the stage Jew for the first time here. It crops up again in Sheridan's Duenna (1775), where the Jew is called Isaac Mendoza, and in Shaw's Man and Superman (1903), which has a Jewish brigand chief Mendoza. This name was not common among English Jews. The Jewish Encyclopaedia only mentions Daniël Mendoza (1764—1836), the famous prize-fighter and champion of England.



What would become of the spice trade, if the Dutch brought their whole growth to market?
Moses. Dat is very true. Your honour has no farder commands ? Mite. None at present, master Mendoza. [Exit Mendoza. Nathan. For de next settlement, would your honour be de buil or de bear?
Mite. I shall send you my orders to Jonathan's. Oh, Nathan!
did you teil that man in Berkshire I would buy his estate ?
Nathan. Yes, but he say he has no mind, no occasion to sell it; dat de estate belong to great many faders before him.
Mite. Why, the man must be mad; did you teil him I had taken a fancy to the spot when I was but a boy? Nathan. I vas teil him as much.
Mite. And that all the time I was in India my mind was bent
upon the purchase?
Nathan. I vas say so.
Mite. And now I'm come home, am determined to buy it? Nathan. I made use of de very vords.
Mite. Well then! what would the booby be at?
Nathan. I don 't know.
Mite. Give the fellow four times the value, and bid him turn out in a month.
The above scene *) shows clearly that the two Jews are the Nabob's faithful advisers and his willing tools in the execution of his financial, political and private schemes. It is remarkable that it is again the Jew broker who is pilloried here. As we already observed in the course of this chapter, Foote mentions him in several of his satires. In the play under review there is another instance. In Act I, sc. 2, Janus, the Nabob's impudent porter, says to Sir Thomas Oldham, who wants to speak to Sir Matthew: "But you are very importunate; who are you? I suppose a Jew broker, come to bring my master the price of stocks." There is also a Jew broker Moses Manasses in Foote's The Cozeners. One might infer from these frequent references,
') The Nabob, Act II, sc. 2.



which occur not only in Foote's comedies, but also in several of the plays of his contemporaries and of his successors, that in the second half of the eighteenth century London teemed with Jewish brokers. There were, however, only twelve. By Jew brokers we mean the Jewish merchants who had the right of trading at the Royal Exchange. Not until the resettlement of the Jews in England in 1656 was the word "broker" used in connection with Jews who lived in London and did business there.J) In 1697, when the Corporation of London had obtained Parliamentary powers "for restraining the number and illpractices of brokers and stock-jobbers", the committee who had to re-organize the Exchange limited their number to one hundred English brokers, twelve aliens and twelve Jews. 2) The limitations on the last two classes were not removed until the year 1828 3). It is hardly to be assumed that those twelve Jews behaved so badly that they deserved so much attention on the part of the late eighteenth century writers of satires and farces. In the available sources I have found hardly anything to the discredit of the eighteenth century broker that might prove that he was worse than his Christian colleague. One instance of fraud is recorded by Ashton4), who tells us that on Jan. 6, 1777, two Jews, Samuel Noah and Joseph Aarones, were examined before the Lord Mayor, charged with having counterfeited a lottery ticket. It is much more probable that the introduction of the Jew broker into so many plays of the period we are investigating was simply a matter of literary tradition. After Macklin had set the example in 1759 by depicting a contemptible Jew broker in his extremely popular farce Love a la Mode, his colleagues were not long in following this example, thus making the Jewish broker one of the stock figures of the stage. He had already been mentioned as early as 1752 by Foote in his Taste (Mordecai Lazarus), by Smollett in 1753 in Count Fathom (Ch. LXVI) and perhaps by Arthur Murphy8) in
x) The Jewish Encycl. III, p. 395.
2) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 260.
s) The Jewish Encycl., III, p. 396.
*) John Ashton, A History of English Lotteries, London, 1893, p. 86.
6) Arthur Murphy (1727—1795) mentions the Jew a few times in his farces. In The Upholsterer he refers to a Jew pedlar (Act I, sc. 3), and in The Citizen (1761) George Philpot speaks of the rich Pactolus, a great Jew merchant



The Upholsterer; or, What News? (Drury Lane, March 30, i758), where, in Act II, sc. 1, a broker is mentioned called Jacob Zorobabel1), who "writes paragraphs to raise or tumble the stocks or the price of lottery tickets, according to his purposes", and who "buys away and thrives upon our ruin." It was Macklin, however, who first made the Jew broker one of the regular dramatis personae.
In The Bankrupt (Haymarket, July 21, 1773) the Jew is mentioned twice. In Act I, sc. 1, allusion is made to Jacobs the Jew, who was as old as one of the patriarchs, and in Act II, sc. 2, Pillage tells his friend Resource that he is going to take out a commission against five macaronies, "who are joint annuitants to a couple of Jews".
The Cozeners, performed at the Haymarket on July 15, 1774, is Foote's last Jew play. In this comedy the satirizing of the Jews culminates in a scene in which the Jew broker, this time under the name of Moses Manasses is an upstart who wishes to enter society. As this character cannot be detached from its surroundings, we first have to consider the contents and the purpose of this poignant satire.
The cozeners are an unscrupulous and resourceful woman called Mrs. Fleece'em, and her jackal, Mr. Flaw, an unprincipled lawyer, whom she has ordered to circulate a report "that, by means of many powerful connexions, she is able to procure posts, places, preferments of all conditions and sizes; to raise cash for the indigent, and procure good securities for such as are wealthy; suitable matches for people who want husbands and wives, and divorces for those who wish to get rid of them. 2)"
(Act II, sc. 2). When telling Corinna, his sweetheart, of the way in which he has got money out of his avaricious father, he remarks: ". . . . and then as I dealt out little maxims of penury, he grinned like a Jew-broker when he has cheated his principal out of an eighth per cent." Old Philpot, George's father, who is lying under the table and is overhearing the conversation, is twice on the point of leaving his hiding-place, but restrains himself saying: "Lie still, Isaac, lie still" (Act II, sc. 1).
*) That a Jew broker was probably meant here, might be gathered from the two names themselves and from the fact that Fielding had used a corruption of the surname — Zorababel — for his stage Jew in Miss Lucy in Town (1742).
2) The Cozeners, Act I, sc. 1.



The result is of course that several persons try their luck. At the conclusion of the play the cozeners are, however, unmasked by Colonel Gorget, which causes Mr. Aircastle, one of the persons duped, to exclaim: "Then I am totally ruined! I told you, Mrs. Aircastle, what would come of your — I remember Martin Moneytrap, of the Minories, was once in the very same way — he was taken in by a Portuguese Jew". x)
Among the clients there is also a Jew, called Moses Manasses, who wants to become a member of a fashionable club. He is a dandy, like Mordecai in Love a la Mode. The servant who announces him says that he is "vast finely dressed", and Mr. Flaw remarks: "From his present dress you would think that all his days were spent in a drawing-room."2) Besides being a foppish, rich Jew broker, Moses has other characteristics which are strongly reminiscent of Mordecai. He is also a flatterer and thinks himself very successful with the ladies. To Mrs. Fleece'em he says: "I vas never see a more finer vomans since I vas born," and his being a favourite with women may be illustrated by the sentence: "I alvays finds de ladies very partial to me". Other reminiscences of Macklin's farce are Moses' dealings with annuities and lotteries, and his adventure on the turf, where all the people laugh at him when he is unhorsed by Lord Billy Booty. In Love a la Mode there is also a Jew, Mordecai's friend, who cuts a very foolish figure on a race-course.
A study of the conversation 3) between Manasses 4) and the two cozeners reveals further means by which the author seeks to render the Jew despicable in our eyes. We observe in passing that Foote has made progress in the writing of the so-called Jewish dialect: the jargon of The Cozeners is of a less innocent character than that of The Nabob. The impudent Flaw reminds
*) The Cozeners, Act III, sc. 3.
2) ibid., Act I, sc. 1.
3) ibid., Act I, sc. 1.
4) The name Manasses, uncommon among Jews, occurs in Cervantes' The Travels of Persiles, Prince of Thule and the faire Sigismunda Princesse of Friesland (1616), which was translated into English in 1619. Cervantes mentions it in Bk. IV, ch. III (Cardozo, op. cit., p. 170). It is not found in the Bible, but occurs in the last book of the Protestant Apocrypha, Prayer of Manasses, which purports to be the prayer of Manasseh, king of Judah (2 Chron. 33 v. 18).



his cliënt, who is evidently a simpleton, that he has occasioned a separation bet ween a certain Mrs. Modish and her husband, and that he has had a love-affair with one Lady Harrow-heart. When the Jew denies this Flaw tries to incense him by saying: "Why, have not I heard the young fellows at Betty's, when you have been passing by with Lady Kitty Carmine, in her new vis-a-vis, exclaim, 'Look, look! there is Moses again! I can't conceive what the ladies can see in that pencil-selling mongrel Manasses! I fancy he catches women, as people do quails, with his pipe.'" The Jew's only answer is: "Dat is all spite, all malice, on my honour." At last they come to business, and Moses expresses a wish "to get into de Boodles, de Almacks, or von of de clubs." He had already been put up repeatedly, but had always been black-balled. He thinks that his religion is an objection, but Mrs. Fleece'em is of opinion that his business relations with some of the members, who do not like to meet a dun at their clubs, must be the cause of it. After the Jew has promised not to trouble those debtors again, Mrs. Fleece'em assures him that she shall find a means to gratify his wish. Manasses now makes a deposit, sells a couple of lottery-tickets,1) and takes his leave saying: "You may teil de club, dat I shall make de very good member; for now and den I love to play a little myself." When the lady wams him to be temperate upon such an occasion, he replies: I eats so little, and drinks nothing at all .... No, never at cards; de claret would turn all topsy-turvy; no, no, I must take care not to drown Pharaoh again in the Red Sea." After his departure Mrs. Fleece'em and her accomplice chuckle over their success with the halfwitted Jew.
When summing up our impressions of Foote's Jews we might say that especially the Jew broker seems to be an eyesore to him: he lays himself out to find ridiculous names for him, he
i) The frequent references to lotteries, especially in connection with Jews who sold tickets for them, in late eighteenth century drama, must be explamed by the fact that in the second half of the century a state-lottery was held almost every year. They were exciting affairs as a rule. Ashton tells of a lady whose success in the lottery was prayed for in the parish church in the following form: "The prayers of this congregation are desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking" (John Ashton, op. cit., p. 74).



makes him murder the King's English, and holds him up to derision. As no redeeming virtues are to be found in Foote's Jewish characters, we must relegate all of them to the realm of caricature. Dr. Habakkuk in The Devil upon Two Sticks stands for the cowardly hypocrite, Nathan and Mendoza in The Nabob are a pair of contemptible sycophants, and Manasses in The Cozeners must be looked upon as a bragging and brainless upstart who wishes to enter society at any price. In the last case especially the influence of Macklin, who had been so successful with his Mordecai, is clearly perceptible. This proves that the harassing of the Jews in those days was not so much a result of the desire to expose social evil as an attempt at scoring popular and pecuniary success. For these reasons the dramatists of the period under review eagerly introduced Jewish characters into their farces and satires.



CHAPTER XI
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
The decade from 1770 to 1780 has been called "a blossomingtime for English comedy", and not without reason. It witnessed the production of the plays of the two great Irishmen, Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774), and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751— 1816). We are only concerned with the latter here, as the former, at least in his dramatic works, cannot be said to be guilty of literary exploitation of the Jews. As a playwright Sheridan is chiefly remembered for The Rivals, The Critic, The Duenna, and The School for Scandal. In the last two pieces Jewish characters were introduced: Isaac Mendoza and Moses. Before dealing with them, a few words should be devoted here to some incidental references to Jews in Cross Purposes (Covent Garden, Dec. 5, 1772), an amusing and successful farce in two acts, written by William O'Brien (d. 1815).
In Act I, Jenny, the servant of Captain George Bevil — one of the three brothers who, ignorant of each other's intentions, pay their addresses to the same lady — tells Chapeau, George's valet, that two Jews — they are described as two thin ugly men x) — have asked for the captain. When Chapeau communicates this to his master, the latter says: There s no living without these Israelites. I am an absolute bankrupt with every Christian creature; and if my luck does not change shortly, they will find me out at Duke's place, 2) too." 3) To his brother, Harry Bevil, he confesses that he is laying some of his burdens upon "the tribe of Issachar" 4), and that he is availing himself of the services of more than a dozen Jews.
*) Cross Purposes, Act I, sc. i.
2) The Great Synagogue (erected 1722) was in Duke's Place, in the Cityof London.
3) Cross Purposes, Act I, sc. 2.
4) In Genesis 49, v. 14 Issachar is termed "a strong ass". This explains -the reason why O'Brien uses the word "fourden in connection with the tribe of Issachar".



He adds: "But if I marry, I will discard them all, and play a more Christian kind of game for the future." 1)
The Duenna, written when Sheridan was only twenty-three years old, was produced at Covent Garden on Nov. 21, 1775It was extremely successful. The Beggar's Opera had had an unprecedented run of sixty-three nights in succession, but the number of performances of Sheridan's ballad opera amounted to seventy-five during the first season.
Isaac Mendoza being one of the principal and best-drawn characters, the whole plot invites our attention. Don Jerome, a Spanish nobleman living at Seville, has a son Don Ferdinand, and a beautiful daughter Donna Louisa, who is guarded by the Duenna, an ugly elderly woman. The young lady is in love with Antonio, but her father wants her to marry Isaac Mendoza, a rich Jew. The following passage, which is without doubt among the best parts of the play, describes some traits of Isaac's character with considerable humour:
Don Jer Isaac Mendoza will be here presently, and to-
morrow you shall marry him.
Donna L. Never, while I have life!
Don Fer. Indeed, Sir, I wonder how you can think of such a man for a son-in-law.
Don Jer. Sir, you are very kind to favour me with your sentiments — and pray, what is your objection to him?
Don Fer. He is a Portuguese, in the first place.
Don Jer. No such thing, boy; he has forsworn his country.
Donna L. He is a Jew.
Don Jer. Another mistake: he has been a Christian these six weeks.
Don Fer. Ay, he left his old religion for an estate, and has not had time to get a new one.
Donna L. But stands like a dead wall bet ween church and synagogue, or like the blank leaves between the Old and New Testament.
Don Jer. Anything more?
l) Cross Purposes, Act I, sc. 2.
if



Fer. But the most remarkable part of his character is
his passion for deceit and tricks of cunning. na L. Though at the same time the fooi predominates so much over the knave, that I am told he is generally the dupe of his own art. x)
After Louisa's refusal to marry Isaac, Don Jerome swears never to speak to his daughter again till she obeys him, and never to go out without leaving her under lock and key. The Duenna, to whom the girl has resigned "all right and title" in the Jew, manages to piek a quarrel with Don Jerome, who turns her out of his house, but allows her to take leave of her mistress. Five minutes later Donna Louisa leaves her parental home disguised as the Duenna. When Isaac calls, Don Jerome immediately sends him to his daughter's room, where the extremely amusing scene 2) takes place in which the Jew woos the hideous old woman, who is dressed as Donna Louisa. At first he is so timid that he does not dare to raise his eyes and speak to her, but when this difficulty has been overcome by her affability, he looks at her and discovers that she is old and ugly, which causes him to say to himself: "'tis well my affections are fixed on her fortune, and not her person." The more she flatters him the less ugly she becomes in his eyes. He even thinks that there is something pleasing in the tone of her voice when she says: "I was taught to believe you a little black, snub-nosed fellow, without person, manners or address. But, sir, your air is noble — something so liberal in your carriage, with so penetrating an eye, and so bewitching a smile! So little like a Jew and so much like a gentleman!"
To make a long story short, the Duenna suggests to Isaac to carry her off. He joyfully closes with her proposal, saying to himself: "I shall secure her fortune, and avoid making any settlement in return; thus I shall not only cheat the lover, but the father too. Oh, cunning rogue Isaac! ay, ay, let this little brain alone!" He takes her to a Priory, where a friar marries them, together with two other couples (Donna Louisa
Don Fer. Donna L.
*) The Duenna, Act I, sc. 3. 2) ibid., Act II, sc. 2.



and Don Antonio, Donna Clara and Don Ferdinand). After the marriage, when all these six people are in Don Jerome's house, Isaac discovers that his wife is not a rich young heiress, but a penniless old woman. He now realizes that he has become "the dupe of his own art." As if to fill his cup, he is unmercifully laughed at and all his boastful expressions are repeated in his presence. She who had at first declared him to be "so little like a Jew and so much like a gentleman", now calls him "a little insignificant reptile", when he says that she is as old as his mother and as ugly as the devil. She also snarls out: "Dare such a thing as you pretend to talk of beauty? A walking rouleau? A body that seems to owe all its consequence to the dropsy! A pair of eyes like two dead beetles in a wad of brown dough! A beard like an artichoke, with dry, shrivelled jaws that would disgrace the mummy of a monkey?"
Originally there were to have been two Jews in The Duenna. Don Carlos, Isaac's friend, who acts a very unimportant part, was also meant to be a Jew at first, and was addressed with "Moses, sweet coz" by Isaac1), in the first sketch of the play. This passage (Act II, sc. 2), which is quoted by Moore 2), was afterwards altered, and part of the humour was transferred to the character of Isaac. Moses reveals himself in it as a man of great stupidity: he commits himself badly in the course of his conversation with Isaac and the Duenna. He compares the latter with his mother who, as he says, was also formerly a great beauty. The last part of the suppressed passage is very instructive for the investigator of the eighteenth century stage Jew, and is therefore worth quoting here. We hardly know which of the two Israelites is the greater fooi.
Isaac. Stay, dear Madam — my friend meant — that you put him in mind of what his mother was when a girl — didn't you, Moses?
') In the play, as we know it now, Isaac once addresses Don Carlos with "so coz". This should be "so friend". According to Sanders (Life of R. B. Sheridan, p. 52) Sheridan never took the trouble to revise any of the printed editions of his dramas. He thinks it quite possible that the text of The Duenna is not particularly correct. The expression "so coz" seems to support Sanders' assertion.
2) Thomas Moore, Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable R. B. Sheridan, Paris, 1825, vol. I, p. 150.



Moses.
Duenna. Isaac.
Moses.
Duenna. Isaac.
Moses.
Oh yes, Madam, my mother was formerly a great beauty, a great toast, I assure you; and when she married my father about thirty years ago, as you may perhaps remember, Ma'am —.
I, Sir! I remember thirty years ago!
Oh, to be sure not, Ma'am — thirty years! no, no — it was thirty months, he said, Ma'am — wasn't it, Moses ?
Yes, yes, Ma'am — thirty months ago, on her marriage with my father, she was, as I was saying, a great beauty; but catching cold, the year afterwards, in child-bed of your humble servant —.
Of you, Sir! — and married within these thirty months! Oh, the devil! the devil! he has made himself out but a year old! — Come, Moses, hold your tongue — You must excuse him, Ma'am — he means to be civil — but he is a poor, simple fellow — an't you, Moses ?
'Tis true, indeed, Ma'am.
Did Sheridan reject this passage to spare the Jews? It is not very likely, for otherwise he would not have made Isaac a Jew either. According to Moore1), the original sketch was altered "possibly from the consideration that this would apply too personally to Leoni, who was to perform the character." This explanation seems very plausible. Myer Leoni, the Cantor of the Portuguese Synagogue, may be expected to have objected to acting the part of a half-witted Jew, and Sheridan, eager to secure the collaboration of the celebrated and popular singer 2), may have thought it expedient to change Moses into Don Carlos, although we do not understand how a strict conforming Jew — for such he evidently was, as the piece was not performed on Friday night only for the sake of Leoni3) — was found willing
1) Moore, op. cit., vol. I, p. 150.
2) Garrick's The Enchanter; or, Love and Magie, a musical drama of two acts (Drury Lane, Dec. 13, 1760), was written, as The Biographia Dramatica informs us, "to exhibit to advantage the fine voice of Leoni, a Jew boy, who long after continued a favourite with the public" (Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., vol. II, p. 195).
*) H. P. Stokes. A Short History of the Jews in England, London, 1921, p. 109.



to act in a play in which a Jew was held up to derision. Another explanation for the cutting down of the passage in question has been suggested, namely that Leoni's English was limited.1) I must confess that I do not feel the strength of this argument. If Leoni's knowledge of English was too limited to do full justice to the character of Moses, this would also be the case with respect to the part of Don Carlos, for the two röles do not differ very much as regards length. But, whatever the reason may have been, Moses disappeared from the scene to return two years later in The School for Scandal, not as a great fooi, but in the shape of a crafty money-lender.
It will now be our task to examine Isaac's character and to find out if in it Sheridan made a new departure or if he depicted a conventional figure. To start with, the Jew is of course wealthy: Louisa says that he is twenty times as rich as her poor Antonio. The author also wants us to regard him as a dandy, for he makes him appear on the stage looking in a pocket-glass. Another characteristic of Isaac is his cowardice. When Don Ferdinand collars him, because he has told him of Clara's elopement, the Jew cries for mercy. Later on he runs away when Don Ferdinand is heard to approach.
But the most conspicuous trait of Isaac's character is his boundless complacency, especially as regards his outward appearance and his mental faculties. To Don Carlos, who objects to his face, he observes: "I think it a very engaging face; and, I am sure, a lady must have little taste who could dislike my beard. See now! I'll die if here is not a little damsel [Louisa] struck with it already." 2) As to his mental powers, he considers himself very cunning. He says to Don Carlos, when he has found a means of deceiving one of his rivals: "Ah! this little brain is never at a loss — cunning Isaac! cunning rogue!" 3) We need not mention here all the cases in which the Jew refers to himself as being sly or cunning; one other instance will be sufficiënt. In Act II, sc. 4, he says: "I shall be entitled to the girl's fortune, without settling a ducat on her. I'm a cunning
*) It is mentioned by Sanders, op. cit., p. 52. 2) The Duenna, Act I, sc. 5.
s) ibid.



dog, an't I? A sly little villain, eh? Roguish, you'11 say, but keen, eh? Devilish keen?"
None of these features are new. All the stage Jews discussed in the preceding chapters are rich; they are invariably complacent dandies who think that every lady will become enamoured of them; they mostly try to increase their wealth by marrying a rich Christian, af ter they have forsworn their faith. In this last their hopes are always deceived; and therefore, just as Sancho, Dryden's Jew, becomes the husband of the poor and unchaste Dalinda, just as Macklin's Mordecai fails to hook the rich and beautiful Charlotte, just as we do not hear that Manasses in The Cozeners is successful with Lady Harrowheart or Lady Kitty Carmine, so Isaac Mendoza marries the penniless and ugly Duenna.
Nor is cowardice a new characteristic of the stage Jew. Granville's Shylock and Foote's Habakkuk are, as we have seen, also meant to be cowards. It is not to be wondered at that this quality was thought very suitable to the ridiculous Jew; it would render him all the more despicable in the eyes of the audience, which was for the most part the object aimed at. Cowardice is not a trait of the stage Jew only; it is typical of the Jew in fiction in general, of which a few examples will be sufficiënt illustration. Benwash in Daborne's A Christian turned Turk (1612) shows the white feather when he hides himself, because his guests have come to blows. Af ter they have gone, he emerges from under the table, which causes Gallop to exclaim: "'tis poverty makes a man valiant; when I had my duckets I had no more heart than a Jew." J) In Ivanhoe (1819) Scott makes Front-de Boeuf say to Isaac of York: "Feeble thou mayest be, for when had a Jew either heart of hand?" 2) Fagin, "the merry old Jew", in Oliver Twist is also a coward. He contrives the plans for the robberies, but values his skin too much to carry them out himself, and he therefore leaves their performance to his accomplices.
As regards Isaac's outward appearance, expressions like "little Isaac", "little Solomon", and "little Hebrew scoundrel",
*) A Christian turned Turk, Act I, sc. 4. a) Ivanhoe, Ch. XXII.



denote that Sheridan's Jew was of small stature. It is perhaps not without importance to note this, as it seems to be one of the stock characteristics of the eighteenth century stage Jew. Mordecai in Love a la Mode is called "little Shadrach", and his friend is described as "a little beau Jew, a little fine dirty thing." The Jew broker in Cumberland's The Fashionable Lover (1772) is termed "little Napthali", and Sheridan's Jew in The School for Scandal is addressed as "little Moses". Other examples will be given in their place. It will be clear that for comic purposes a person of small stature will be more suitable than one of the average size.
It remains to find out who influenced Sheridan when he created the character of Isaac. All the biographers of Sheridan — Thomas Moore, Fraser Rae, Mrs. Oliphant, L. Sanders, and even Walter Sichel — are silent as to the origin of the Jew, although many pages are devoted by them to real and imaginary borrowings and plagiarisms. As regards the source of the play itself, Sichel1) remarks that as a girl of fifteen Sheridan's mother had written a romance Eugenia and Adelaide on a Spanish subject, which nearly thirty years later may have suggested the local surroundings of The Duenna. Moore2) thinks that the intrigue is mainly founded upon an incident in Wycherley's Country Wife (1674). He evidently means Mrs. Pinchwife's escape from her husband's house in her sister-inlaw's clothes. Nicoll 3) mentions not only The Country Wife, but also Molière's Le Sicilien, Mrs. Centlivre's A Wonder, and the anonymous II Filosofo di Campagna. But, as there are no Jews in any of these plays, Sheridan's chief source must probably be sought elsewhere, namely in Dryden's Love Triumphant (1693). Although Sheridan's indebtedness to this play was already vaguely pointed out by Scott in 1808, when he edited Dryden's dramatic works, no stress has been laid on it since then and none of Sheridan's biographers have paid any attention to it hitherto. Scott only makes the following observation: "It may, however, be remarked that Sancho, a tawdry and conceited coxcomb, the son of a Jewish usurer, and favoured by the father of his
*) Walter Sichel, Sheridan, London, 1909, vol. I, p. 229. 2) Thomas Moore, op. cit., vol. I, p. 150.
') Nicoll, op. cit., p. 205.



mistress only for his wealth, has some resemblance in marmers and genealogy to a much more pleasant *) character, that of Isaac in The Duenna. 2)
When we compare the two plays we are struck by a number of similarities. The scene of the two dramas is laid in Spain. In both plays there is a person named Lopez, and a Jew who has a friend called Don Carlos. The two Israelites have much in common. They are bragging simpletons without any redeeming qualities, who think themselves "cunning". They have both become Christians, but their new faith is of a very doubtful nature. Both consider themselves great favourites with the fair sex, and endeavour to increase their wealth by marrying a rich Christian. They both walk into the trap that has been laid for them and when the curtain falls, they find themselves linked to a poor woman whom they loathe. The way in which The Duenna tries to win the favour of Isaac is also strongly reminiscent of the scene in which Dalinda attempts to entice Sancho. If we add to this that Sheridan was a great admirer of Dryden 3) — he even wrote some songs and an epilogue for the latter's version of Shakespeare's Tempest*), one of the first plays he performed after his purchase of Drury Lane Theatre — we may safely assume that The Duenna was written under the influence of Love Triumphant.
Isaac's surname was probably taken from The Nabob (1772), where, as we saw in the preceding section, one of the Jews is called Moses Mendoza. This name may have suggested to Sheridan, who originally intended to introducé two Jews into The Duenna, to call the one Moses and the other (Isaac) Mendoza.
It is perhaps not difficult to account for Sheridan's motive for composing a play with a Jewish character in it. His predecessors, Macklin and Foote, had achieved pecuniary as well as popular success with their stage Jews, and Sheridan, who
J) At first sight it sounds strange that Scott calls Isaac a much more pleasant character, for the Jew really has nothing agreeable about him. Scot+ probably uses "pleasant" here in the now obsolete sense of "amusing".
2) Scott-Saintsbury, op. cit., vol. VIII, p. 369.
3) Sichel, op. cit., vol. I, p. 271.
4) ibid., p. 531.



was already a married man at the age of twenty-two, and had no fortune of his own, was soon confronted by the problem of keeping the wolf from the door. And because his Jew met with such uncommon applause, he created another Jewish character for his School for Scandal. Isaac was successfully played by John Quick (1748—1831), who also distinguished himself in the representation of Mordecai in Love a la Mode.
Hazlitt, when discussing The Duenna in his Lectures on the English Comic Writers, asserts x) that the plot, the characters and the dialogue are all complete in themselves and are all Sheridan's own. From the foregoing it will be obvious that this is certainly not true as far as Isaac is concerned. The dramatist simply adapted Dryden's Sancho for his own purposes, borrowing a few minor traits from the Jews of Macklin and Foote. But Sheridan succeeded in infusing life into the unreal Sancho, and created a character which, from an artistic point of view, deserves to be ranked among the best in English literature.
Small wonder that in several works of fiction there are references to Isaac. In 1776 Israël Pottinger published The Duenna, a comic opera in three acts. It is a worthless travesty of Sheridan's play and need not be discussed here, as it contains no Jewish characters. But one thing is worth mentioning, namely that Boreas, one of the suitors of Clara Raymond, says: "After all, I fear that I am but acting the part of the little cunning Isaac" (Act I, sc. 1).
Isaac is also mentioned in Mrs. Cowley's The Belle's Strategem (Covent Garden, Febr. 22, 1780). In this excellent comedy the belle's father, Mr. Hardy, resolves to attend a masked ball, disguised as Isaac Mendoza: "Hang me! if I don't send to my favourite little Quick, and borrow his Jew Isaac's dress .... Ay, that's it; 1*11 be cunning little Isaac." 2) When Hardy has entered the ball-room, the following conversation takes place between him and some masks:
Mask. Why, thou little testy Israelite; back to Duke's place, and preach your tribe into a subscription for the good
*) William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Lecture VIII.
2) The Belle's Strategem, Act III, sc. i.



of the land, on whose milk and honey ye fatten. Where are your Joshuas and your Gideons 1), eh? What! all dwindled into stockbrokers, pedlars and ragmen? Hardy. No, not all. Some of us turn Christians, and, by degrees, grow into all the privileges of Englishmen. In the second generation, we are patriots, rebels, courtiers and husbands.
2 Mask. What, my little Isaac! How the devil came you here? 2)
There is another reference to Isaac Mendoza in Cumberland's periodical The Observer (No. 38). 3) In a letter to the editor Mr. Abrahams complains of the way in which he was once treated in a theatre. Some one had shouted to his comrades: "Smoke the Jew! Smoke the cunning little Isaac!"4)
Sheridan's other Jewish character is to be found in the wellknown comedy The School for Scandal, which has been facetiously called "that school which knows no vacation in this world." It was produced at Drury Lane on May 8, 1777. The author, then only twenty-five years old, was already at the height of his fame. As The School for Scandal is still one of the popular classics of the stage, we may assume that the reader is so familiar with its contents, that the brief mention of the salient facts, as far as the Jew is concerned, will suffice here.
Maria, the ward of Sir Peter Teazle, is loved by two brothers to whom Sir Peter also acts as a guardian. Joseph, the elder, passes for a miracle of prudence and benevolence, but in reality he is mean and hypocritical. Charles is a most dissipated and extravagant young man, but possesses a kind and tender heart.
1) Joshua was the successor of Moses, who led the Israelites to Canaan. As to Gideon, see p. 62- The above passage, which clearly shows that Mrs. Cowley was not very friendly disposed towards the Jews, refers to Sampson Gideon (1699—1763), the leading member of the Jewish community in London, who had married a Christian and had sacrificed his faith to gratify his ambition "to take his place among the landed gentry of the country, a position he was well qualified to occupy by his wealth, his influence and his services" (Hyamson, op. cit., p. 278; cf. also Landa, op. cit., p. 122).
2) The Belle's Strategem, Act IV, sc. i.
3) The British Essayists, op. cit., vol. XXXVIII, p. 252.
4) In a pirated edition published at Dublin in 1793 under the name of The Governess, Isaac is called Enoch Issachar (Sichel, op. cit., vol. I, p. 510).



Because he is constantly in monetary difficulties and is prepared to pay a high interest, he is in great favour with the Jews. Crabtree says of him: "If the old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there. I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine; and that, whenever he is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in all the synagogues." *) Af ter an absence of fifteen years Sir Oliver Surface, the rich and childless uncle of the two brothers, returns from India, and after having heard many things of his nephews, who do not know him, he resolves "to make a trial of their hearts". He secures the assistance of Moses, a Jew broker, who has already advanced much money to Charles. Moses is described as a friendly Jew, who had done everything in his power to bring the young spendthrift "to a proper sense of his extravagance", and is announced with the words "Here comes the honest Israelite." Sir Oliver resolves to lend money to Charles under the name of Mr. Premium, formerly a broker. Moses first teaches him the practices of usury:
Sir Peter The great point, as I take it, is to be exorbitant
enough in your demands. Hey, Moses?
Moses. Yes, that's a very great point.
Sir Oliver. 1*11 answer for't. I'll ask him eight or ten per cent.
on the loan, at least.
Moses. If you ask him no more than that, you'11 be discovered immediately.
Sir Oliver. Hey! what, the plague! how much then?
Moses. That depends upon the circumstances. If he appears not very anxious for the supply, you should require only forty or fifty per cent; but if you find him in great distress, and want the moneys very bad, you may ask doublé.
Sir Peter. A good honest trade you're learning, Sir Oliver! Sir Oliver. Truly I think so — and not unprofitable.
Moses. Then, you know, you haven't the moneys yourself, but are forced to borrow them for him of a friend. And your friend is an unconscionable dog: but you can 't help that.
l) The School for Scandal, Act I, sc. i.



Sir Oliver. My friend an unconscionable dog, is he?
Moses. Yes, and he himself has not the moneys by him, but is forced to sell stock at a great loss. 1)
When Sir Oliver and Moses are waiting to be admitted to Charles, Trip, the latter's servant, who is also in financial difficulties, transacts some business about an annuity with the Jew. It soon appears that Charles has nothing to dispose of but the family pictures, which makes Sir Oliver ask: . do you take me for Shylock in the play, that you would raise money of me on your own flesh and blood?" In the well-known auction scene 2), in which Moses serves as an appraiser, Charles bluntly refuses to part with the picture of his uncle. When later on Sir Oliver, disguised as old Mr. Stanley, a ruined merchant, has tested the generosity of the two brothers, because he has been turned out of the house by Joseph after having received a large sum of money from Charles, he is no longer in doubt as to which of them shall be his heir.
To return to Moses, this Jew caused Sheridan some trouble on the very eve of the first performance of the play, as a license was refused. On Dec. 3, 1795 the author himself narrated the circumstances in the House of Commons as follows: "It happened at this time there was the famous city contest for the office of chamberlain, between Wilkes and Hopkins. The latter had been charged with practices similar to those of Moses the Jew, in lending money to young men under age; and it was supposed that the character of the play was levelled at him, in order to injure him in his contest, in which he was supported by the ministerial interest. In the warmth of a contested election, the piece was represented as a factious and seditious opposition to a court candidate. He, however, went to Lord Hertford, then Lord Chamberlain, who laughed at the affair, and gave the license." 3)
From this we may conclude that Moses had no prototype, and that his origin is either due to the author's inventive ge-
J) The School for Scandal, Act III, sc. i.
2) ibid., Act III, sc. 3.
') Speeches of It. B. Sheridan, edited by a Constitutional Friend, London, 1816, IV, p. 188. (Fraser Rae wrongly quotes III, p. 17).



nius, or to borrowings from the realm of fiction. As in the case of Isaac, none of the biographers and commentators of Sheridan have tried to sift the matter, although many attempts have been made to tracé the other characters of The School for Scandal. Fortunately Professor Belden, in his work on Foote, gives us a slight hint, when, discussing the obligations owed to this dramatist, he says: "Little Premium and Little Moses recall Little Transfer." 1) There is indeed some resemblance between the latter character, which occurs in The Minor (1760), and Moses. Transfer is an old broker [not a Jewish one], who, just like Moses, advances money to minors. The following passage, in which he shows himself a smart money-lender, reminds us of the way in which Moses instructs Sir Oliver in the practices of usury:
Transfer. But to save time, I had better mention his terms.
Loader. Unnecessary.
Transfer. Five percent, legal interest.
Sir George. He shall have it.
Transfer. Ten, the premium. 2)
Sir George. No more words.
Transfer. Then, as you are not of age, five more for insuring
your life.
Loader. We will give it.
Transfer. As for what he will demand for the risk — Sir George. He shall be satisfied.
Transfer. You pay the attorney.
Sir George. Amply, amply, Loader, despatch him.
Transfer. I had forgotten one thing. I am not the principal; you pay the brokerage. 3)
It is not impossible that Sheridan also knew by experience what Jewish and Christian money-lenders were. He appears to have had a bad business head. As "he began life without capital, and passed most of it during a period of financial panics and among the most spendthrift surroundings" 4), his many
') M. M. Belden, op. cit., p. 191.
2) This word may have suggested to Sheridan the name of Mr. Premium.
*) The Minor, Act II, sc. 1.
4) Sichel, op. cit., vol. I, p. 153.



pecuniary difficulties are easy to account for. But the conversation quoted above shows that literary influence should also be taken into account when we try to discover the source of Sheridan's knowledge of the tricks of usurers. Foote, in his turn, probably owed this to Fielding's The Miser (1738), which, as we already remarked in another chapter, is a translation of Molière's L'avare. 1) It is also quite possible that Sheridan borrowed direct from this source. But this much is certain, that the whole of Act II, sc. 1 of The Miser is strongly reminiscent of the two conversations referred to. Unfortunately the scene is too long to be quoted here.
Transfer and Moses resemble each other in another point: both have a kind of impediment in their speech. The former is described as a man with a "cautionary stammer". Of the latter we read that he is "a little slow at expression; he'11 be an hour giving us our titles." 2) In this respect he reminds us of another Moses, who said to God: "OhLord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." 3) This shortness of tongue, which cannot very well be called a racial peculiarity of the Jews, was undoubtedly utilized by the dramatist as a fresh means to ridicule this people.
We have not yet exhausted the number of borrowings of Sheridan's in connection with his Moses. The author probably also took some hints from another play by Foote, The Cozeners (1774), in which, it will be remembered, there is also a Jew broker, called Moses, who procures annuities. 4) Naphtali in Cumberland's The Fashionable Lover (1772) should also be mentioned here: both Moses and Naphtali are described as Jew brokers whose principals are Christians.5) And lastly, when Moses drinks a toast to usury6), we are involuntarily reminded of that unsavoury scene in Granville's Jew of Venice,
1) Foote probably inspired Arthur Murphy, who has a similar scene (Act I, sc. 1) in The Citizen (Drury Lane, July 2, 1761).
2) The School for Scandal, Act III, sc. 3.
*) Exodus 4 v. 10.
4) The Cozeners, Act I, sc. 1.
s) The School for Scandal, Act IV, sc. 1; The Fashionable Lover, Act IV, sc. 2.
•) The School for Scandal, Act III, sc. 3.



where Shylock drinks to money as his mistress, exclaiming: "Here's to Interest upon Interest." x)
As to the character of Moses himself, it does not make a very unpleasant impression upon us. At any rate he does not represent the disagreeable type of usurer so common in earlier plays. He seems to be generally trusted and is even respected, as we conclude from the words "I have done all I could for him [i. e. Charles]; but he was ruined before he came to me for assistance," 2) and from an expression like "a very honest fellow", which frequently occurs in the play. When occasionally less friendly appellations are used, as for instance, when Charles says af ter the auction scene: "I wonder how the De vil Moses got acquainted with so honest a fellow" [i. e. Mr. Premium], we are inclined to take this with a grain of salt, because we know that he is friendly disposed towards the Jew. It should be borne in mind, however, that Sheridan does not treat Moses as a serious character. He holds him up to ridicule and even makes him drink to usury! Of a dramatist with brilliant histrionic gifts and insight into human nature — qualities which Sheridan undoubtedly possessed — one would have expected a more truthful picture of the psychology of the Jew. Isaac is only the conventional braggart whose stupidities are meant to amuse the audience, and Moses is the traditional moneylender whose practices are intended to rouse indignation. We already pointed to the fact that the latter's character is much less offensive than Isaac's. Phrases like "a friendly Jew", and "the honest Israelite" sound strange when one has got accustomed to the abusive epithets mentioned in the preceding sections. It is as if Sheridan regrets a little his fierce attack on the Jews in The Duenna, where we only meet contemptuous expressions like "this damned Jew", "you vile mischievous variet", "you little Hebrew scoundrel", "you little insignificant reptile", 3) etc. We are mistaken, however, when we think that the somewhat milder view of the Jews which Sheridan takes in The School for Scandal is due to a change of opinion, for his political
*) The Jew of Venice, Act II, sc. 2.
2) The School for Scandal, Act III, sc. 1.
3) The latter expression may be a direct echo of Mordecai in Love d la Mode> who is also called "a reptile" by one of the other characters (Act I, sc. 1).



writings also show that he regarded the Jews as an ïnlerior race. Two years af ter the production of his most famous play, on March 27, 1779, he published in The Englishman, a newspaper appearing twice a week, a fierce attack on Lord George Germaine, the War Minister, and wrote among other things: "If we elevate a degraded and reprobated officer to direct the military enterprise of the country, why not appoint atheists to the mitre, Jews to the Exchequer . . . x) Is his capacity of manager of Drury Lane, too, Sheridan showed himself to be an enemy of the Jews. In a letter, dated April 13,1780, he countenanced an offensive and worthless piece called Moses and Shadrac, or a Specimen of Jewish Education, by asking the Lord Chamberlain's approbation for having it acted at the above theatre. Sheridan's attitude towards the Jews between the years 1775 and 1780 is hardly to be reconciled with his later humanitarian views, af ter he had become a Member of Parliament in the latter year. We know from his speeches that he championed Catholic emancipation, resisted the game laws and the penal code, assailed the abuses of the prisons, raised his voice against Government lotteries, and voted against the slave trade. It is a pity that a man of this enlightened spirit, who later on must have seen benevolent Jews on the stage, and who must have known the reception accorded in 1812 to The Jew of Mogadore in the Biographia Dramatica,2) should not have openly expressed his regret for his early prejudice against the Jews. Of course it would have been difficult for the author of The School for Scandal to own that, to some extent, he himself had also been guilty of the practices which he had exposed so successfully, the deliberate spreading of scandal. The only thing that might point to something like atonement is the fact that he vigorously encouraged the production of The Jew of Mogadore. 3)
i) Sichel (op. cit., vol. I, p. 594) <ïuotes the whole PassaSe in which Lord George Germaine is attacked.
a) "Mr Cumberland's reiterated effort in behalf of a too much degraded and despised people, was very laudable" (Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., vol. II,
^ T. Williams, Richard Cumberland, his Life and Dramatic Works
London, 1917, P- 266.



That the introduction of Jews into comedies and farces had simply become the fashion in those days is clearly shown by the fact that Garrick (1716—1779), evidently inspired by the success of plays with Jewish characters, also tried his hand at a Jewish figure. In 1777, when requested to read a play before the King and Queen, he chose his own farce Lethe, which he had produced at Drury Lane in April 1740, and introduced "for the occasion" the character of an ungrateful Jew. As the reader will remember, it was not the first time that a so-called Jew play was read to a King. Eighteen years before Love a la Mode had been read to George the Second. But Garrick's farce was not so successful as Macklin's. The Biographia Dramatica tells us "that the coldness with which this select party heard him, so opposite to the applause he had always been used to on the stage, had such an effect upon him, as to prevent his exertions." *) It seems that this is not to be ascribed to the new figure, for the work just mentioned calls the Jew "an excellent new character". Unfortunately we know no more of this creation of Garrick's 2) beyond the circumstance that the Jew wished "to forget his gratitude to a benefactor in distress." 3) We know enough of it, however, to conclude that the famous actor did not make any new departure, but drew the portrait of the conventional unlovable Jew.
It is just what we had expected from Garrick, for Neck or Nothing (Drury Lane, Nov. 18, 1766), another farce of his, contains an unfriendly reference to the Jews. Slip, a servant, tells Martin, a colleague of his, of a narrow escape he has had of being sent to one of the settlements abroad: ". . . . meeting one night with a certain Portuguese Jew merchant, in one of the back streets here by the Exchange (I was a little in liquor, I believe), it came into my giddy head to stop him, out of mere curiosity to ask what news from Germany — nothing more; and the fellow, not understanding good English, would needs
!) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., vol. I, p. 264.
2) The version of 1777 only exists in manuscript form. lts last known possessor was Sir Israël Gollancz (Nicoll, A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama, Cambridge, 1925, p. 216). When Sir Israël died in 1930, the MS. passed into other hands. Though I have made several attempts to tracé it, I have not been able to discover it.
3) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., vol. II, p. 369.



have it that I asked him for something else. He bawled out, up came the watch, down was I laid in the kennel, and then carried before a magistrate" x). When Martin thinks that this adventure has discouraged his friend from continuing his old life — they are a pair of knaves — he says to him: "I doubt that damned Jew merchant sticks in thy stomach."
In Isabella; or, The Fatal Marriage (Drury Lane, Dec. 2, 1757), a tragedy which Garrick had altered from Southern, he retained the words: . like a Jew as he is, he says you have had more already than the jewels are worth" (Act II, sc. 2). 2) His The Country Girl (Drury Lane, Oct. 25, 1766), a reworking of Wycherly's The Country Wife (1674/5), contains a reference to Shylock. In Act V, sc. 1, Moody remarks: "As the Jew says in the play, Fast bind, fast find. 3) [Locks the door.] This is the best and only security for female affection."
*) Neck or Nothing, Act I, sc. i.
*) See p. 87.
') See p. 101.



CHAPTER XII
ANDREWS AND O'KEEFFE
The last two decades of the eighteenth century were exceedingly fruitful as regards Jew plays. During that score of years not less than fifteen dramatic pieces were written which have all one or more Jewish characters. No wonder that in such a period a reaction should take place. The dramatists were really going too far, and when one of them suddenly deviated from the old course for reasons which have been explained elsewhere, it seemed as if the scales had also fallen from the eyes of the audience. Before we tackle this more congenial topic, quite a number of despicable figures first invite our attention.
It is not without reason that the names of Miles Peter Andrews (d. 1814) and John O'Keeffe (1747—1833) have been linked together in the heading of this chapter: these two playwrights are responsible for the creation of the two most repulsive stage Jews of the second half of the century; though before we deal with them we must notice in passing Sophia Lee's The Chapter of Accidents (Haymarket, Aug. 5, 1780). In this five-act comedy Lord Glenmore tells his son Woodville to go to the London Tavern, and ask if Levi, the Jew, is waiting there for him. x)
Andrews' Dissipation is of special interest, because, to the best of my knowledge, it is the only eighteenth century play in which a Jewess figures. 2) This comedy in five acts was staged at Drury Lane an March 10, 1781. In the preface the author informs us that his chief aim in writing Dissipation was "to draw a lively picture of the manners of high life, characterized by an easy indifference to the vissicitudes of fortune, and a kind of indolent acceptance of every fashionable enjoyment." The prologue already gives us a foretaste of what is to be enjoyed later on, in the words: "my little
') The Chapter of Accidents, Act. III, sc. i.
2) There is a Jewess, Miss Leah Ephraims, in an "entertainment", called A Specimen of Jewish Courtship (see the next chapter).



Premium paysh de losh." x) It does not leave the reader in doubt as to what kind of stage Jew will engage his attention for a while.
The scene of the play is laid in London. It describes contemporary life, for in the first act we get a picture of the patriotic feeling which prevailed during the years of the American war (I775—1783). 2) Alderman Uniform, a fishmonger, has also enlisted and has become a captain in the regiment of the extravagant Lord Rentless, a member of Parliament, who thinks politics a mere matter of amusement, and who confesses that he does not give himself the trouble to understand every subject debated upon in the House. "Some things," he says, "one can't help being familiar with, such as the national debt, or the ruin of one's country, or naturalizing a Jew, or —" 3) It is in the alderman's shop that we first make the acquintance of the old Jew Ephraim Labradore, a rich money-lender, who lives in Duke's Place. Mr. Uniform thinks commerce a vulgar employment, but Mr. Labradore holds a different view: "I wash always think nothing vulgar that wash profitable." The best way to throw more light upon the Jew's character is perhaps to quote part of the conversation between him and the alderman. The latter advises Labradore to push himself a little into "genteel life":
Labr. Indeed, I wash push a great deal; and am forced to be very hard with the nobility and young men of fashion. Aid. Stop my pay, but I believe they are hard pushed. However, your persuasion prevents you from being admitted into the line, as we say.
Labr. Not at all. I never wash know any line that the money
bags could not rub out.
Aid. Why, your face, indeed, might be white-washed; but
in the army we are a little particular about figure. Labr. Oh! I believe there ish no objection to my person. (Looking at it) De ladies find no fault met dat.
x) The expression "little Premium" was evidently borrowed from Sheridan's The School for Scandal (Act III, sc. 3).
2) The same patriotism is to be observed in The Fair Refugee; or, The Rival Jews (see the following chapter).
s) Dissipation, Act II, sc. 3.



Aid. The ladies! ha! ha! Impossible.
Labr. What ish impossible! There ish your friend Lady Rentless, that I wash more intimate with than you are, Maisher Alderman. x)
It appears that Lord Rentless has been reduced to the necessity of taking his wife's jewels to the Jew, who, knowing that the lady is eager to get them back, intends to take advantage of this circumstance.
Before proceeding with the story itself, we ought to make a few remarks in connection with the passage quoted above. It seems to prove that Andrews was influenced by Foote. The latter's The Cozeners (1774) also portrays a Jewish moneylender — Moses Manasses — who wishes to enter fashionable circles and who is of opinion that the ladies are partial to him. In both plays the Jew's religion is deemed to be an obstacle to his entrance into "genteel life". The use of so-called "speaking names" (Uniform, Rentless) and of names like Fleece'em, Barebones 2) and Ephraim also point to the influence of Foote's satirical dramas.
To return to the plot of Dissipation, Mr. Labradore receives an invitation for an entertainment to be given by Lord Rentless and his wife to several people of fashion. The lady's secret motives for inviting the Jew are to have an opportunity to get back her jewels and to mortify her husband's pride "by a little innocent treachery" with Mr. Labradore. Lord Rentless fears that the Jew will not cut a very brilliant figure, but does not raise any serious objections. He even says that Mr. Labradore has a right to see how his money is disposed of. The Jew communicates to Lady Rentless that he accepts the invitation and will make an appointment with her to restore the diamonds, "but", he writes, "[I] must put them on myself, [with] your Labradore's own little hands." 3)
When the Jew gets out of his chair and enters Lord Rentless' mansion, Coquin, one of the latter's numerous servants,
*) Dissipation, Act I, sc. 3.
2) Fleece'em and Barebones are also "noms parlants". I have mentioned them separately, because they occur both in Foote's and in Andrews' works. 8) Dissipation, Act II, sc. 3.



leaves his master's house, dressed as a lord, and betakes himself to Duke's place to persuade Mr. Labradore's daughter Judith, who has written him a billet-doux, to elope with him. The Jew's house is described as being "strangely furnished, tawdry and dirty." Coquin, who passes himself off for a rich French nobleman, has no difficulty in gaining the young lady over to his ends. As old Labradore is not lilcely to come home soon, Judith and her lover, before preparing for their flight, feast upon wine, grapes and Jew's cake. The fact that Judith is in all likelihood the only eighteenth century stage Jewess in regular comedy is a sufficiënt excuse for printing here part of her conversation with the foolish Frenchman.
Jud. But come, vid your glass of wine, eat a piece of our cakes. Eigh, what wou'd my father say, if he saw me give de Jewish cake to de dear little Christian?
Coq. Ah! ah! But vat vil he say when he find de dear little Christian has run away vid his daughter, as well as his cake?
Jud. Aye; he does not know how true and disinterested our love is.
Coq. Disinterested! Certainement! a-propos, Have you secure de littel bijoux, de jewel, de bond, and de argent, just to amuse till I go vid you to my own country? Jud. Yesh; here they are all safe. Oh, how I long to be a French noblewomansh of quality! To see the king and queen at supper, and sit up all night at cards.
Coq. Allons, my petite Israelite, by gar we got no time to lose. The parson is ready, and I have take the apartments express. (Going; a knocking at the door is heard). Jud. Mosesh defend me! that is my father's knock. *)
Rachel, Mr. Labradore's servant, succeeds in keeping her master outside, till her mistress has found a means to help herself and her lover out of the difficulty. When the Jew enters, his daughter's ingenuity has transformed the French servant into a rabbi. Coquin is introduced to Mr. Labradore as "a father of
') Dissipation, Act IV, sc. i.



our tribe who wash taken shick", and, by imitating the Jewish dialect, he manages to pass for a rabbi. "I wash fall ill this morning," he says, "at the sight of two of our brethren who wash execute only for copy one oder pershon s name. Mr. Labradore, who has come home to fetch Lady Rentless' jewels, soon leaves again, saying: "Goodish day to you — I am going to strike a bargain with a friend's wife." When the Jew has gone, his daughter and her lover abscond, taking with them the father's money, his jewels and his documents. This scene is a poor imitation of a well-known episode in The Merchant of Venice, for, like Jessica, this Jewess robs her old father and elopes with a Christian. There is a difference, however. In Shakespeare's play Lorenzo marries Jessica because he is in love with her, whereas Coquin's sole intention is to secure Judith's fortune.
At the entertainment Mr. Labradore has to put up with several taunts. When one of the guests refers to a certain Miss Evergreen, who has run off with a Jew, a doctor answers: "Oh, very common in practice; I was called in, the other day, to the Dutchess of Dismal's youngest daughter, who raved of nothing but the graces of Harlequin Friday." Another guests continues: "That could be no fault of yours, Doctor, as you always prescibe beautiful objects, you know." And when Mr. Labradore says to Mr. Uniform: "you see I wash got into the line," the alderman answers: "Then take care how you get out of it, or you may pay for promotion." x)
In the course of the day the Jew has an opportunity to make an appointment with Lady Rentless. When he arrivés at the rendez-vous — an hotel in the neighbourhood — another taunt is in store for him. The waiter informs him that there had been a servant asking for "a littel2) swarthy-looking gentleman":
Labradore. Umph! a servant! No no, I wash mean a ladysh,
a fine womansh.
Waiter. A fine woman enquiring for you, Sir! 3)
Dissipation, Act III, sc. 4.
2) See p. 166.
3) Dissipation, Act IV, sc. 2.



When Lady Rentless appears at last, she does nothing to gratify his hopes, for she thinks him odious and impertinent. She contrives to get back her trinkets by flattering him and by allowing him to put them on. On hearing footsteps they withdraw into another room, where some moments afterwards they are discovered by Lord Rentless and Miss Uniform, who had also arranged to meet at this hotel. The Jew retires crestfallen, regretting that he has parted with the jewels without ha ving received any "token of gratitude". Lady Rentless concocts a story about the circumstances under which she had met "the odious wretch", as she calls Mr. Labradore, and triumphantly shows the recovered diamonds. Her husband, in his turn, fabricates a lie to account for his behaviour.
In the last act it appears that the extravagance of Lord Rentless has been so great, that he has been obliged to deposit with the Jew some valuable papers belonging to his ward Charles Woodbine. This comes to light when the latter is going to be married to Harriet Acorn, an innocent girl from the country. When General Probe, Lady Rentless' brother, is investigating this matter, Labradore enters and communicates to his friends that his daughter has eloped with a French lord, and that not only his jewels and his money, but also his papers, bonds and deeds have been stolen. At this juncture Coquin appears on the scene bringing the documents with him. The Jew thinks of nothing but his papers: "But give me the shweet parchments — let me embrash them once more." Now that Charles's deeds have been recovered, Harriet's father has no longer any objection to his daughter's marriage. When Lady Rentless has joined the hands of the lovers, she endeavours to rouse conciliatory feelings in the Jew. It is with difficulty, however, that Mr. Labradore is prevailed upon to be reconciled to his runaway daughter and Coquin. "If I recover my monish", he stipulates, "I shall think less to loosh my daughter."
The passages quoted above furnish abundant proofs that Andrews' Jew is an unfeeling, licentious, miserly and low-bred individual. Not one single redeeming quality is to be found in this man; he is the embodiment of almost all the unfavourable characteristics of the preceding stage Jews. His daughter, too, is an unlovable figure. She ridicules her own religion, and does



not scruple to deceive and rob her father for the sake of an unworthy lover. It has been asserted that in fiction the Jewess was as much lauded as the Jew was reviled.1). This may be true of more or less important figures like Shakespeare's Jessica, Marlowe's Abigail, Scott's Rebecca, and several Jewesses in French literature2); it cannot be said of minor characters like Andrews' Judith, the Jew's widow in Sterne's Tristam Shandy, and Miss Leah Ephraims in A Specimen of Jewish Courtship (1787).
Dissipation is perhaps to some extent a true and vivid picture of the manners and morals of the upper classes in the last decades of the eighteenth century; as a portrayal of Jewish life it is a downright failure, however; the characters of Labradore and his daughter lack all veracity and betray the hand of the literary hack who, greedy of popular and pecuniary success, took advantage of prejudices which still prevailed among the people.
Robert Baddeley (1732—1794), who personated Labradore, is mentioned in the preface as being "entitled to the gratitude of the author." This well-known comic actor, who also played Moses in The School for Scandal, distinguished himself especially in the representation of Jews3). A certain Miss Kirby acted Judith.
Although it was probably Foote who supplied Andrews with the material for creating a licentious stage Jew, we may say that the latter dramatist is responsible for the revival of this odious figure. Since the days when Fielding composed his Miss Lucy in Town (1742) the profligate Jew had not been portrayed by later dramatists. They had contented themselves with depicting mere grotesque characters. Andrews' example was followed by O'Keeffe in The Young Quaker (1783) and by Morton in his Zorinski (1795). The anonymous play The Fair Refugee; or The Rival Jews (performed in 1785, though written as early as 1780), which also describes two dissolute Jews, can hardly,
1) Israël Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, London, 1896, p. 257.
^ 2) Maurice Bloch, La femme juive dans le Roman et au Théatre (Revue des Etudes Juives, 1892, p. XXVIII): ". . . . les écrivains eux-mêmes ont dit de la juive tout le contraire de ce qu'ils ont dit du juif."
3) See also the following chapter.



as it was never printed, have influenced Andrews, unless we assume that the author of Dissipation was acquainted with the writer of The Fair Refugee, and had had an opportunity of perusing the manuscript. This possiblity should nevertheless be taken into account, for the two comedies have several features in common: the exaggerated patriotism of the days of the American war, a number of sarcastic references to the Ton, and a licentious Jewish upstart who is anxious to be admitted into society, and who insists on assisting the lady he courts in putting on her jewels1). Moreover, both playwrights show themselves to be proficient at writing the same kind of Jewish dialect.
The plays of John O'Keeffe, an exceptionally prolific Roman Catholic dramatist, have both been highly praised and severely criticized. Hazlitt says of him: "If Foote has been called our English Aristophanes, O'Keeffe might well be called our English Molière". 2) Clark Russell, in his Representatieve Actors styles him "the most brilliant of English dramatists." 3) Nicoll, on the other hand, speaks of him as "an irritating figure, few of whose works show real touches of individual talent", who is "responsible for countless inanities in nineteenth century musical drama;"4) and that this estimate is correct will, I think, be readily admitted by every modern student of his works.
When in 1771, during his visit at Dublin, Charles Macklin acted Shylock at the Capel Street Theatre, O'Keeffe, who had already been an actor for some years, distinguished himself in the röle of Gratiano. This was perhaps his first acquaintance with the stage Jew. Soon after his settlement in London, which took place about 1780, he wrote The Young Quaker, which has a Jewish character callad Shadrach Boaz. This comedy was staged at the Haymarket on July 26, 1783. Six years afterwards O'Keeffe published another Jew play — The Little
>) Dissipation, Act IV, sc. 2; The Fair Refugee, Act IV, sc. 3.
2) William Hazlitt, The English Comic Writers (Lecture VIII).
3) W. Clark Russell, Representative Actors, London, 1869, p. 186.
*) Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama, Cambridge, 1927, P- 200.



Hunchback; or, A Frolic in Bagdad — which was produced at Covent Garden on April 14, 1789. In this farce two Jews are depicted: Zebede and his nephew Absalom. Both plays enjoyed a great popularity in O'Keeffe's day.
The contents of The Young Quaker are soon told, at least as far as the Jewish part is concerned. Old Sadboy, a Quaker living in America, has sent his son to England on business and on account of his attachment to a girl named Dinah Primrose. The latter, too, embarks for the Old World, not only for the sake of her lover, but also to find her father, who, she believes, is still alive and living in London. When she lands at Dover, penniless and friendless, she makes the acquaintance of a Jewish money-lender Shadrach Boaz, who offers to help her. She accepts his assistance, saying to herself: "This seemeth a righteous man, though a Jew." x) He takes the pretty girl with him to London, where he obtains lodgings for her at the house of one Mrs. Millifleur, where Young Sadboy, and his principal, Mr. Chronicle, also happen to live. In the following act the Jew's designs upon the Quakeress are revealed to us. When trying to make love to her, he says: "I vill draw a bill upon your beauty, which your virtue must accept: you pay me vid your honour, and den Cupid, my little clerk, vill give you a receipt, and I vill stamp it vid a kiss." 2) Shadrach's villainous attempts are frustrated by Young Sadboy, who enters just in time. The Jew strikes the lady's rescuer, because he thinks that Quakers never fight. When to his utter astonishment he is beaten within an inch of his life, his courage oozes away and he calls out: "Here's a pretty devil of a Quaker! Here's meekness and Christianity!.... I tought if I struck a Quaker on von cheek, he vould turn de oder to me." Shadrach is now turned out of the room by a servant. Meanwhile Old Sadboy has arrived from America to see where his son lives. The Jew bethinks himself of a means to try and get back the money he spent for Dinah. He enters again and says: "Oh, she is damned bad goods, she has robbed me, and then ran away from me .... I have the officers of justice below to take her." It appears, however, that Young Sadboy
1) The Young Quaker, Act IX, sc. 2.
2) ibid., Act III, sc. 2.



has already discharged the debt of the girl, who now proves te be Chronicle's daughter. The happy father, who first spoke of Shadrach as "my old friend", terms him "a damned infernal rascal" when he hears of the Jew's attempts to debauch his daughter.
O'Keeffe was not the first dramatist to call his stage Jew Shadrach. As has already been remarked elsewhere, Macklin's Mordecai is nicknamed "little Shadrach" by Squire Groom x). The anonymous piece Moses and Shadrac, which was acted three years before the first performance of The Young Quaker, has a character bearing the same name 2). It is not improbable that O'Keeffe took a hint from this production for the name of his new stage Jew. The unknown author of Jewish Courtship (1787) also called one of his Jews Shadrach3). This name, as we have already observed, was borrowed direct from the Old Testament, as was also the case with the name Boaz 4), which is not in use among the Jews either.
From the synopsis of The Young Quaker Shadrach emerges as an unscrupulous villain, who, bankrupt alike in morals and in courage, exhibits no redeeming virtues. In this respect the similar creations of Andrews, Foote and Fielding probably served O'Keeffe as models. Shadrach is also the conventional money-lender, who has dealings with mortgages, loans etc., a feature which was of course suggested to the author by the leading dramatists of the day, Sheridan, Macklin and Foote. The Jewish dialect was evidently imitated from Andrews, Cumberland, Foote, or the anonymous writer of The Jew Decoyed. Curiously enough, it is not found in the first edition of The Young Quaker, which appeared at Dublin in 1784, but this was only pirated, and that of 1788, which was also published at Dublin and appears to have been authorized, does contain the gibberish, so that we may assume that Shadrach was meant to speak the Jewish dialect.
Ralph Wewitzer (1749—1825), a member of Garrick's company and well-known for his successful representation of Jews
1) Love <i la Mode, Act II, sc. 1.
2) See the following chapter.
3) ibid.
4) Boaz was the protector and afterwards the husband of Ruth, the Moabitess (The Book of Ruth, ch. II).



and Frenchmen 1), interpreted the character of Shadrach. He also acted Abednego in The Jew and the Doctor (1798).
Of The Little Hunchback; or, A Frolic in Bagdad, a farce in two acts, the full contents should be given here, as two Jews play prominent parts in it. In the very first scene we make acquaintance with Zebede, an old Jew, who is caterer to His Highness the Bassa. A courier hands him two letters for his master, one of which falls on the floor unnoticed by Zebede. When his nephew Absalom approaches, he says to himself: . the villain is going to marry with a christian womans, after my bringing him up so genteely; and binding him 'prentice to a barber. Ah, here's the rascal, with the very dow'rless damsel, and that hungry beggarman, Crossleg, the taylor; I've a mind — but let me contain my passion." After Zebede has refused to pay for the wedding supper, Crossleg promises to bear the expense, saying: "Hang me if I should think a christian wedding lucky, if the supper was provided by a Jew." Absalom, when leaving his uncle's house, finds on the floor a letter directed to His Highness the Bassa. Crumpy, the little hunchback jester, helps him to deliver the epistle, which appears to be a very important one from Selim, the Grandvizier, and countermands an order given in the other letter, under the condition that the Bassa shall treat the Christians with the utmost rigour. Absalom is handsomely rewarded, and, moreover, is told that any three requests made by him will be granted. Meanwhile Zebede, who is greatly distressed when he discovers that he has lost one of the letters, delivers the remaining one, which contains the following order from the Emperor of Constantinople: "We do command you, that within three hours after the receipt of this, you have yourself strangled; but first leave orders for your head to be cut off, and sent to us. This fail not to do, on pain of our high displeasure." The Bassa now commands the old Jew to be hanged for his negligence, but his life is saved by Absalom, who claims one of the three requests
') W. Clark Russell, op. cit., p. 213. There is in the Garrick club a portrait of Wewitzer with a rhyme which ends with:
His Frenchmen are free from unpleasant grimace,
And his Jews you would swear were all born in Duke's place.
(Dict. of Nat. Biogr. LX, p. 388)



promised him by His Highness. Zebede has to quit his master s service. Before going away, however, he is ordered to show his books. This alarms him so much, that he sighs: "I have cheated him so damnably that my head goes off first, if he finds out my rogueries." 1)
In Act II we read the foliowing proclamation issued by the Bassa: "Any Christian who offends a Mussuiman, shall receive the bastinado; and death is the punishment if he kills one, even by chance. Any Jew who kills a Mussuiman, shall be hung on a gibbet thirty feet high." 2) Crossleg is puzzled when he hears of the severe measures against the Christians, but is glad that the Jews are included, "for the sake of that old arch knave Zebede." When Absalom and Dora have been married, Habby, Zebede's clerk, who is angry with his master because the latter has beaten him, advises the young couple to rob the old Jew and doctor Quinquina, Dora's stepfather. While Absalom is ransacking his uncle's chests and bags, the wedding supper is taking place at the house of Crossleg. During this meal Crumpy, the hunchback, chokes — a bone has stuck in his throat — and his host, afraid of a severe punishment, conveys him to doctor Quinquina. The latter's servant, Dominique, tries to carry him upstairs, but he cannot hold him, so that Crumpy falls down the stairs. The doctor, fearing to be accused of having killed the favourite court jester, resolves to let him down the chimney of his neighbour Zebede. By this time the Jew has discovered the theft, and has just shown in Crossleg, who has come to cash a draft which he has stolen from Crumpy. When Zebede expresses his astonishment at this midnight visit, the tailor answers: "I thought money never came out of season with a Jew." 3) After having examined the draft, the money Tender says: "This is a good bill, but I suspect not come honestly by; and I cou'd stop you and it, but as you are a neighbour I will pay you the whole money, if you give me half." 4) At this moment Crumpy is let down the chimney. Zebede thinks him to be the man who has stolen his money
!) The Little Hunchback, Act I, sc. 3.
2) ibid., Act II, sc. 1.
s) ibid., Act II, sc. 5.
*) ibid.



and gives him a sound thrashing. Being afraid that he has killed him, he places him against a wall in the street, where the hunchback is found by Crank, a drunken English sailor, who also beats him and then thinks that he has struck him dead. The Englishman is apprehended by the Bassa's officers, and confesses that he has killed the j ester. When the Bassa, who does not believe this, promises a recompense to the murderer instead of a punishment, Zebede, the doctor, Crossleg, and the latter's wife successively claim the reward. Crumpy, who appears to have been only unconscious, and who, after having come to, is allowed to make some requests, orders the Jew and the doctor to be hanged, provided they give "consent and capital fortunes" to Absalom and Dora, who have just been arrested on account of theft.
O'Keeffe borrowed the story of the hunchback from the Arabian Nights Entertainments1), the famous collection of oriental tales which first became generally known in Europe through the French translation (1704—1712) of Antoine Galland. O'Keeffe added to his source the love-affair of Absalom and Dora. For the rest he followed the story faithfully, and made but few alterations. One of them — a very important and significant one — should be recorded here. In the original tale 2) the purveyor is a Mussuiman and the doctor is a Jew, who, however, is in no way disagreeable. At any rate we do not hear anything to his discredit, rather the contrary. Before the Sultan of Kasgar he says that he honourably follows the profession of a doctor. O'Keeffe's Jew, on the other hand, is not an honourable man at all. Though not in all respects such a repulsive individual as Shadrach Boaz, he forfeits our sympathy entirely by his cruel treatment of his servant, by his falsification of the accounts of his master, and by his miserliness and avarice. We can understand that he opposes the union of his nephew with a Christian woman, and, indeed, the old man's objection to Absalom's marriage, which is an outcome of the desire to keep his race pure, is perhaps the only real Jewish trait in his character. The name Zebede is not used among Israelites,
') Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 273. 2) CXXIIIth—CXXVIIIth night.



so there is reason to assume that O'Keeffe took it from the New Testament (S. Mark I, v. 19). *)
Absalom, who is called a wicked reprobate, a graceless vagabond, a damned scoundrel, etc., by Zebede, is not a lovable character either. He robs his uncle when the latter refuses to defray the expenses of the wedding. The midnight scene 2) in which Dora, before running off with her husband, steals her stepfather's casket of jewels, while Absalom and Habby are waiting for her, strongly reminds us of a similar but much more beautiful scene, Jessica's robbery and elopement in The Merchant of Venice. It will be remembered that Andrews, too, imitated this episode in Dissipation.
The characters of Shadrach, Zebede and Absalom3) have been sufficiently illustrated now to enable us to form an opinion of O'Keeffe's unsympathetic treatment of the Jews. To him we owe the disgusting money-lender Shadrach Boaz, the grasping and dishonest purveyor Zebede, and the apostate Absalom, who proves to be as bad a Christian as he had formerly been a Jew: his first act as a Christian is to rob his uncle! The conception of this worthy trio makes O'Keeffe a Jew-baiter par excellence. This will become all the more evident, when we consider that he deliberately deviated from his source, where he found a respectable Jewish doctor. As this figure did not answer his purpose, he substituted for it the traditional usurer.
One may be surprised that plays like these were not prohibited or altered by the censor. Only personal satires seem to have been denied a licence, whereas dramas like those discussed above, in which a whole race was vilified and caricatured, were not suppressed at all. As a matter of fact hardly any plays were forbidden in those days. Respecting the censorship of the second half of the eighteenth century Nicoll remarks: "In view of the many occurrences of the Lord Chamberlain's veto both in the fifty years which preceded and in the fifty years which followed this period, the lack of an active censorship from 1750 to 1800 is almost inexplicable." 4) 
*) Zebedee is mentioned here as the father of the disciples James and John.
2) The Little Hunchback, Act II, sc. 4.
8) The parts of Zebede and Absalom were respectively acted by Wilson and Macready.
4) Nicoll, op. cit., p. 19.



The fact that the Jews themselves did not protest is less astonishing when we bear in mind that they were treated with contempt and ridicule, not only on the stage, but also in daily life. Maria Edgeworth, in her novel Harrington (1817), which, as we saw in an earlier chapter, deals with things Jewish in the second half of the eighteenth century, tells us how poor, helpless and wretched the Jews were, and how they were continually abused and insulted, and mocked by servants and little children. x) In The Observer (No. 38, 1785) Richard Cumberland quotes a letter to which we already referred elsewhere, which he said he had received from a Jew called Abraham Abrahams, who complained as follows of the way in which he was treated in the theatre: "I no sooner put my head into an obscure corner of the gallery, than some fellow roars out to his comrades — 'Smoke the Jew! Smoke the cunning little, Isaac!' — 'Throw him over', says another, 'hand over the smoutch!' — 'Out with Shylock', cries a third, 'out with the pound of man's flesh' — 'Buckles and buttons! Spectacles!' bawls out a fourth — and so on through the whole gallery, till I am forced to retire out of the theatre, amongst hootings and hissings, with a shower of rotten apples and chewed oranges vollied at my head, when all the offence I have given is a humble offer to be a peaceable spectator." 2) It was of course Cumberland, who had written the letter in question, but the circumstances related in it may have been true all the same. In No. 38 of The Observer he also gives some details about the low social condition of the Jews in his days: ". they neither till the earth, nor work at any craft, but content themselves in general to hawk about a few refuse manufactures, and buy up a few cast-off clothes which no man methinks would envy them the monopoly of." 3) History corroborates this. In the Jewish Encyclopaedia we read: "The social condition of the Ashkenazim toward the end of the eighteenth century was by no means satisfactory. Apart from a very few distinguished merchants like Abraham and Benjamin Goldsmid, Levy Barent Cohen, and Levy Salomons, the bulk of the Ashkenazic com-
1) Harrington, ch. II.
2) The British Essayists, vol. XXXVIII, pp. 252, 253.
8) ibid., p. 250.
13



munity consisted of petty traders and hawkers .... The lower orders of the Sephardic section also were suffering somewhat from demoralization. Prize-fighters like Aby Belasco, Samuel Elias, and Daniël Mendoza, though they contributed to remove some of the prejudice of the lower orders, did not help to raise the general tone." 1)
References to poor Jews are naturally few and far between in the literature of the period under review, because those Jews did not come so much to the fore as their rich brethren, and because they were not such a favourable butt for ridicule. In The Connoisseur of April 25, 1754 2) allusion is made to a poor Jew pedlar, who came to hawk goods at the house of a certain knight. Opulent Jews are much oftener referred to, as has been sufficiently shown in the foregoing sections. Not only the dramatist, but also the prose-writer mentions them frequently. In The World of Febr. 14, 1754 3) an unknown writer tells us that he once mistook a right re verend divine for a Jew, till the mitre on his coach convinced him of his error; on another occasion he had taken a Jew for a peer of the realm, by the decorations on his chariot. And Warton in The Idler of Jan. 26, 1760 refers to a rich Jew who had offered money for a countryseat near London. 4)
*) The Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. VIII, p. 161.
2) The British Essayists, vol. XXX, p. 68.
s) ibid., vol. XXVII, p. 35.
4) ibid., vol. XXXIII, p. 323.



CHAPTER XIII
SOME UNPUBLISHED PLAYS
A number of unpublished Jew plays, which were all produced once during the last decades of the eighteenth century, a period which might justly be termed the heyday of the Jew drama, must now be reviewed. The following is a list of them, with their dates:
I775- The Contrast; or, The Jew and the Married Courtesan. 1780.* Moses and Shadrac; or, A Specimen of Jewish Education. 1785.* The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob. x)
1785.* The Fair Refugee; or, The Rival Jews.
1787.* A Specimen of Jewish Courtship.
1788. The Diamond Ring; or, The Jew outwitted. 1790.* Mordecai's Beard.
1795. The Jew and the Gentile.
The consequence of their never having been printed is that we know hardly anything of the contents of some of them. Fortunately the majority — those indicated with an asterisk — are still extant in manuscript form, in the so-called Larpent Collection in the Huntington Library at San Marino. Until recent times these Jew plays were thought to have been lost: as late as the year 1926 Landa declared of The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob: ". . . . nothing has survived concerning this mysterious playlet." 2) Happily this is not true. When perusing the enormous handlist of plays appended to Nicoll's A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama, good fortune made me discover the place where several of the "lost" plays are to be found. 3) Consequently they are discussed here for the
*) See the Appendix.
2) Landa, op. cit., p. 122.
s) The Larpent collection came to the Huntington Library as a part of the famous Bridgewater House Library, purchased by Mr. Henry E. Huntington in 1917. John Larpent was appointed inspector of plays in 1778 by



first time. These dramas forming entirely unexplored territory, it will be necessary to dweil upon them at some length.
With the exception of the first and the last they are all anonymous plays. It is more than probable that the contents of most of them were thought so offensive and so scurrilous by the authors themselves, that they did not dare to mention their names. This supposition seems to be supported by the fact that titles were chosen which as far as possible might serve as a kind of advertisement to inform the public that Jews were ridiculed in these plays. They are very instructive, revealing as they do the depraved taste of the audience. It is a pity that three of the pieces mentioned in the list at the beginning of this chapter, are no longer extant, not because we flatter ourselves with the thought that they might have any literary or histrionic value, but because they would probably prove not to be without significance for the student of sociology.
The farce The Contrast; or, The Jew and the Married Courtesan, was produced at Drury Lane on May 12, 1775, for the benefit of the author, Francis Godolphin Waldron (1744—1818), a forgotten dramatist, and of one Mrs. Greville. x) From Genest2) we learn that the piece was never printed and that Baddeley, the well-known actor, was one of the performers. This is all that we know of the play. From the conspicuous title we may safely conclude that Waldron introduced into it a licentious Jew, perhaps under the influence of Foote's Moses Manasses, who had amused the audience of the Haymarket Theatre some months earlier.
Moses and Shadrac; or, A Specimem of Jewish Education, a Petit Piece, as it was called by Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
the Marquis of Hertford, then Lord Chamberlain. He preserved the manuscripts of plays submitted to him from 1778 to 1824, and acquired most, if not all, the manuscripts submitted after 1737, when the Licensing Act was passed. Larpent's widow sold the collection in 1825 to J- ^'■ Collier and his friend Amyot. Collier in turn sold it in 1853 to the Earl of Ellesmere, the possessor of the Bridgewater Library, which was purchased by Mr. Huntington in 1917. For these particulars I am indebted to Mr. Leslie Edgar Bliss, librarian of the Huntington Library.
l) Baker, Reed Jones, op. cit., II, p. 126.
!) Genest, op. cit., V, p. 453,



at that time the owner of Drury Lane, who applied to the Lord Chamberlain on April 13, 1780, for permission to have it performed, was not acted at this theatre until April 19, 1784. In his handlist of plays Nicoll*) records two separate pieces: Moses and Shadrac and Jewish Education. The first production is described as a Petit Piece, the second as an interlude. There is however every reason to assume that the two titles refer to the same play, that it was submitted for approval in 1780 under the name of Moses and Shadrac; or, A Specimen of Jewish Education, and that it was performed at Drury Lane four years afterwards as an interlude under the title of Jewish Education. Genest2), who also mentions the latter piece, informs us that it was acted in 1784 for the benefit of Mr. Baddeley, who in the character of Moses presented the audience with "a specimen of Jewish Education." When we therefore consider that this expression is the subtitle of Moses and Shadrac, that in both pieces there is a character called Moses, and that of the one play only the date of submission for approval is known, whereas of the other only the time of production has been recorded, there can be hardly any doubt that the two anonymous pieces are identical. Therefore Landa's conjecture 3) that Jewish Education [he does not mention Moses and Shadrac] is evidently a monologue, is in all probability wrong.
Moses and Shadrac is a dialogue between a father, a Jew pedlar, and his son. Of all the Jew plays that we have considered till now, this is perhaps the worst, not so much as regards its contents [though they are offensive enough], but as to its literary value. It is simply astonishing that a flimsy production like this could find favour in the eyes of the Lord Chamberlain, and that the author of The School for Scandal could recommend it. In about one hundred lines Moses, who speaks an abominable gibberish, teaches his son how to act towards Jews and Christians. He tells him that the first and great object of a Jew is to get money, that he has to sell to his own people at the lowest prices, and that he is allowed to obtain money
') Nicoll, op. cit., pp. 337, 333.
2) Genest, op. cit., VI, p. 301.
3) Lancia, op. cit., p. ioq.



from Christians in every possible way: by making them bankrupts, by cheating them, by lending them money at two hundred per cent. on good securities, by swearing for or against them as best suits his own purpose, and by other "lawful means." It would be waste of time and paper to deal with Moses' inane twaddle at great length. Suffice it, before taking leave of this trash, to give two specimens of the Jew's queer arguments. When Shadrac asks why being put in the pillory is a terrible disgrace to Christians and not to Jews, Moses replies: "Because if one of our people standsh in de pillory with a long beard, when he comes out he shaves it off; and if he standsh wit his face smooth, he never goes out of doors till his beard is grown; so he is not know either way." x) Shadrac's question: "Don't all Christians play us some tricks too?" is answered as follows: "O yes, great many, dey are as willing to sheat us, as we are to sheat dem, a great many of them have all dese instrouctions by heart, and when dey put dem in practice, dey are worse den any Jew in de world, for when a Christian turns rogue, he will cheat his vader, his mother, and what is worse, the devil himself." 2)
We now come to a more interesting and much more important play, The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob3), a farce in two acts, which was staged at Covent Garden on April 1, 1785. It was attributed to the well-known novelist Tobias Smollett (1721—1771). Unfortunately this fact is not recorded by contemporaries, but by three early nineteenth century critics. In the Biographia Dramatica of 1812 we read that The Israelites was "reported as a posthumous work of Dr. Smollett and indeed contained some strokes of humour in his style, yet it met with but a cold reception, and has not been printed." 4) Sir Walter Scott declares in his Life of the Novelists (1821) that the play
i) H. M. Larpent 16. S. p 5. (H. M. = Huntington Manuscript).
») ibid., p. 6.
s) In the MS. (H. M. Larpent 39. M) the title is spelt: The Isreahtes. It must have been copied by a careless hand, for there are a great number of spelling-mistakes in it. This seems to exclude the possibility that it was the author himself who wrote the manuscript. Hence the handwriting — which, by the way, is not Smollett's — cannot serve as a clue to discover the author.
«) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 336.



was "ascribed to Smollett on very dubious evidence, was indifferently received, and has never since appeared, either on the stage or in print." x) Genest2) writes in the year 1832 that it was taken from a piece by Smollett which had never been published or performed before. From this we may conclude three things: in the first place, that none of the three authorities just mentioned ever read or saw the play; secondly, that the statements of Scott and Genest are based on that of the Biographia Dramatica, and thirdly, that, when Scott speaks of dubious evidence, he evidently refers to the expression of the Biographia Dramatica "some strokes of humour is his style."
Of the contents of the play we knew hitherto only that the piece was believed to have been brought upon the stage to hold up to ridicule "a person who had been lately exhibited in caricature at the print-shop windows, as an insect." 3) As to the cast of the play, Genest 4) mentions only four actors: Wewitzer, Edwin, Mrs. Kennedy, and Mrs. Webb. We may assume that the first of these, the well-known interpreter of Jewish characters, to whom we already referred in the preceding chapter, acted the part of Mr. Israël, the principal figure of the piece.
Our discovery of the fact that The Israelites is not lost, but is still extant in manuscript form, enables us to discuss "this mysterious playlet." Af ter an examination of its contents and characters, as far as the Jewish part is concerned, the question of the authorship will be dealt with.
From the application for permission to have the piece acted, which is dated 1785, and which is signed by James Harris, then manager of Govent Garden Theatre, we learn that it was intended for an afterpiece, to be performed for the benefit of one Mr. Aickins 5), with the permission of the Earl of Salisbury.
1) Scott, op. cit., p. 103.
2) Genest, op. cit., VI, p. 362.
3) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 336. In the play there is not a single reference to an insect. It is therefore not impossible that the authors of the Biographia Dramatica are mistaken on this point. Although I made several attempts to tracé the print in question, I have not been successful. This is a pity, because it might help us to fix the date of The Israelites.
*) Genest, op. cit., VI, p. 362.
6) The name of Mr. Aickins is mentioned in the dramatis personae of several plays of the time.



Although the manuscript does not mention the word farce at all, the play is as a rule described as such, evidently because the Biographia Dramatica employs this appellation. ]) Af ter reading the piece one is inclined to describe it as a farce that contains some melodramatic features. 2)
The principal characters of The Israelites are Mr. Israël, a rich old Jew; his son Enoch, a young reprobate who squanders his father's money on "women, wine, play, and race-horses", and who has renounced his faith and embraced Christianity; Sir Simon Lollop, an indolent Nabob; Mrs. Wrinkle, SirSimon's sister, a gay and vain young widow who is fond of using learned words; the latter's daughter Naivette 3), a rich and charming heiress; and Mr. Heartly, one of the young lady's suitors.
The plot is simple. Mr. Israël, who is one of Naivette's guardians, is not content with the way in which the young lady is brought up by her frivolous mother, whose house [she lives with her brother] is frequented by coxcombs, gamesters, fortune-hunters, younger brothers, officers on half-pay, and other "persons of fashion". The Jew, who is really anxious to give his ward a good education, resolves, after having discussed the matter with his joint guardian, Sir Simon Lollop, to move her from the "pernicious habitation of folly, idleness and sloth," as he styles the Nabob's house, and to have her brought up by his own sister. Enoch, on learning his father's intention, forestalls him, and by bribing Flam, Naivette's maid, he succeeds in carrying off the girl. The young spendthrift is not in love with her, but wants to marry her for the sole purpose of securing her fortune. Flam makes her young mistress believe that the old Jew has determined to shut her up in a mad-house, and that Enoch, his Christian son, is willing to "defeat his father's Jewish barbarity" and to set her at liberty on condition that she becomes his wife. There is nothing left
*) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 336.
2) As general melodramatic features Nicoll (op. cit., p. 98) mentions: the spectacular nature of the setting, the love of gloom and mystery, the excess of artificial sentimentalism, the hopelessly unnatural poetic justice, the general air of pathetic morality, a set of stage figures — villain, heroine distressed but thoroughly virtuous, hero guarding and alert, servant or friend honest but full of comic pranks.
s) In the MS. this name is also spelt Naivete, especially in the second act.



for poor Naivette but to consent. Meanwhile Mr. Israël, who has discovered his son's attempt to abduct the young lady, overtakes him, and after everything has been explained, a pathetic scene is enacted between the old Jew and his ward, who has been the object of his paternal affection since the time when he had to disown the son who had already cost him more than fifteen thousand pounds:
Naiv. Oh, how can you be so barbarous to me who worked you a night cap in a gobble .... and loved you as well as if you had been my own father, to go to send me to a mad-house.
Flam. (to Naivette) Pshaw, hold your nonsense [Pulling her. Naiv. To lie upon straw in a dark room to be shaved — O
mercy, do I want to be shaved!
Flam. These are all your son's doings.
Israël. I know it. I overheard all. Come, my dear.
Naiv. Am I your poor Naivette still?
[Throws her arms about his neck. Israël. Her simplicity is so affecting.
Naiv. Do you cry, Sir?
Israël. No, child, no, 'tis a humour I am subject to (wiping his eyes). But you shall never again be from under my wing till you have a protector for life. x)
Enoch now endeavours to make love to Naivette's mother. When Mr. Israël calls on the widow to communicate to her that Mr. Heartly has asked her daughter's hand in marriage, she intercedes with the Jew in behalf of his son. The young man, who has hidden himself behind a curtain at his father's entrance, now comes forward, makes a clean breast of everything and promises to mend his ways. When Sir Simon, the goodnatured Nabob, also puts in a word for Enoch, a reconciliation takes place between the latter and his father, who expresses his willingness to pay his son's debts, if he really resolves to reform. Sir Simon also calls on the Jew's purse, for he has just been informed that his black servant has taken French leave after robbing his master. Mr. Israël offers to lend him
*) The Israelites, Act II, sc. 2.



money, saying: . like my offspring here you are a good Christian, for your right hand knoweth not what your left hand doeth, but you shall have money from me. 1 will show you there are some Jews who practise what many Christians only profess." 1)
It will be manifest that the treatment of the Jew in The Israelites is entirely different from that which he suffered at the hands of the playwrights considered hitherto. He is not held up to ridicule, neither is he treated as an inferior individual. He is no longer a buffoon, nor an unmitigated scoundrel. For the first time the Jew in drama is an ordinary human being whose character is composed of good and bad qualities. The good traits predominate, for there are not many things to find fault with in Mr. Israël. It is true, Flam, the widow's servant, calls him a hot and hasty man who is suspicious of everything. That the Jew is really impetuous appears from the scene in which he canes Blanchee, the Nabob's negro boy, out of the room, when the latter does not leave soon enough to enable the agitated Mr. Israël to teil Sir Simon that his niece has been carried off. The irascible Jew is of course drawn as a foil to the indolent and slothful Nabob, who exclaims on this occasion: "The Jew beats the Pagan. I am sorry you should take such trouble. I am afraid you have heated your blood." 2) Mr. Israel's suspicion may be explained by the fact that all his life he has had to do with rogues. When Flam's dishonesty is discovered afterwards, it proves that he has suspected her not without reason. We also understand that the servant is slandering the Jew, when, in her attempt to prejudice Naivette against her guardian, she refers to Mr. Israël as a wicked old Jew, a crocodile, and a monster of cruelty and deceit.
When trying to point out the less favourable characteristics of Mr. Israël, we should also mention the fact that he has disowned his son, who in consequence of this calls his father his greatest enemy. We ought not to forget, however, that this good-for-nothing has enraged the old man by renouncing Judaism and by his dissolute life.
On the other hand, Mr. Israel's impetuous temper, his
*) The Israelites, Act II, sc. 3. 2) ibid., Act II, sc. 1.



suspicion, and his apparently harsh treatment of his son, are amply compensated by his "virtue, morality and economy", attributes which Mrs. Wrinkle ascribes to him, and which actually manifest themselves. Moreover he is entitled to our sympathy by his disinterested zeal in watching over the interests of his ward, who loves him as if he were her own father, by his readiness to forgive his son when the latter returns truly penitent and confesses his wildness, his extravagance and his undutifulness, and by his offer to assist Sir Simon in his financial difficulties.
In The Israelites some of the follies and vices of the time are satirized: the slothful Nabob and his inevitable negro boy, the use of bombastic language by people of fashion, the Bon Ton, and the practices of Christian usurers. When in Act I, sc. 2, Mr. Israël asks his son where his three bills of two hundred pounds are, the latter answers: "Discounted, as I am a Christian — but not by Jews — the Christians out of charity to young fellows in distress have taken usury out of the hands of the Jews, and now do business at fifty percent., with as undisturbed consciences as any descendant from the twelve Tribes."
The name Enoch is not common for the eighteenth century stage Jew. Isaac Mendoza, it will be remembered, is called Enoch Issachar in The Governess (1793), a pirated edition of Sheridan's The Duenna. The name may have been taken direct from Gen. V, v. 18, where Enoch is mentioned as the son of Jared. The name of the old Jew in The Israelites reminds us of the "hero" of another anonymous play, The Jew Decoyed (I735). who, as we have seen, was called Manasseh ben Israël. The first part of this name was utilized by Smollett for his Jew in Count Fathom (1753), the latter part by the unknown writer of 'The Israelites.
This brings us to the problem of the authorship of the play under review. As has already been observed, tradition assigns it to Smollett. There are indeed some circumstances which point in that direction, apart from "the strokes of humour in his style", which are really present in the play. The fact that it depicts a Jew with good qualities cannot but support the traditional view of the authorship: Smollett's Joshua Manasseh, the benevolent Israelite in Count Fathom, could not very well



be followed a) by an unlovable Jew. Like Joshua, Mr. Israël is rather sentimental: he cannot keep back his tears when his ward asks him after her rescue: "Am I your poor Naivette still?" The Jew's pursuit of Enoch and the girl also recalls a little episode in Smollett's Peregrine Pickle 2), which tells of an old Jew who chases his fugitive daughter and her abductor. The use of speaking names like Lollop and Naivette likewise reminds one of Smollett's skill in in venting a "nom parlant". The absence of the Jewish dialect, which is found in almost every Jew play of the period might also be an argument in favour of this view, for Smollett, who paid considerable attention to the Jews in his novels, never made them speak the jargon to which we have already referred so often. Moreover, one of the incidental characters in Humphry Clinker (1771) might be taken for a Nabob, although the word itself is not used: Squire Pounceford is described as a man who "lives in a palace, feeds upon dainties, is arrayed in sumptuous apparel, appears in all the pomp of equipage, and passes his time among the nobles of the land." 3) For completeness' sake we should also inform the reader that a comparison between The Israelites and The Reprisal; or, The Tars of Old England (1757), Smollett's only comedy, does not yield any important clues. True, both pieces have two acts and two titles, and in each there is a character named Heartly, but these things are of such general occurrence in the dramas of those days, that they do not suggest anything in favour of the traditional view concerning the authorship.
None of these arguments, however, can be called convincing. They do not exclude the possibility that the play may have been written by an author who was under Smollett's influence — a supposition which is probably nearer the truth, as we will now endeavour to show. When comparing the diction and style of The Israelites with Smollett's only tragedy The Regicide; or, James the First of Scotland [written
*) The Israelites cannot possibly have been written before Count Fathom, for in 1753 the word Nabob in the sense of a rich retired Anglo-Indian was not yet known (see p. 205).
2) Peregrine Pickle, ch. LXXIX.
3) The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias Smollett, M. D., London, 1824, vol. XI, p. 92.



when the author was eighteen years old], and his sole comedy The Reprisal, we cannot fail to observe the greatest possible difference, whereas a comparison between the latter play and Roderick Random would, if these two works were anonymous, soon lead to the suspicion that they had been written by one and the same author, for in both a thorough knowledge of seafaring life is displayed. In addition, the style of The Regicide and of The Reprisal betrays the work of a professional, while that of The Israelites suggests the amateur.
Then there is the question of the date of composition, a problem that is closely related to that of the authorship. There is virtually only one clue which can give us the least guidance in this matter: the use of the name Nabob in the meaning of a wealthy retired Anglo-Indian.*) The word Nabob in this sense probably does not occur in English literature until 17642), the date of the earliest example recorded by the N. E. D.3) Till 1771, the year in which Smollett died, it was hardly ever used. After this time it was frequently employed for persons who were of obscure origin and had amassed great wealth in India which they spent in England in an ostentatious and extravagant way. It was not long then before the dramatists and essayists seized upon them as welcome subjects for their satires. In this connection I am able to supply the following list of characters of, or references to, Nabobs in fiction:
1764. Walpole, Letters, vol. IV, p. 222 (edition of 1906): "Mogul Pitt and Nabob Bute" (N. E. D.).
1766. Colman and Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, I, 1: ". . . . a rich English merchant may make himself a match for the daughter of a nabob."
1767. Sterne, Letter LXXXIII: "he says he hopes . . . . to see her eclipse all other nabobesses .... in wealth."
1) In Sir Thomas Ctillicos; or, The Mock Nabob, a lost anonymous farce, which. was acted at Covent Garden in 1758, the word Nabob probably had the older meaning of a ruler in India.
2) The empire of England in the East did not begin before Clive's victory at Plassey in 1757.
") I'strongly doubt whether theN.E.D. isright in this respect. InWalpole's Letters it says: "... Mogul Pitt and Nabob Bute: the former of whom remains shut up in Asiatic dignity at Hayes, while the other is again mounting his elephant and levying troops." It probably has the same meaning as the word Nabob in note i.



1772. Foote, The Nabob (Sir Matthew Mite).
1774, Burgoyne, The Maid of the Oaks, IV, 1: "I will have no nabobs or nabobesses in my family."
1775. Bate, The Rival Candidates, I, 1: " your papa is
going down to the borough to vote for his friend Mr. Indigo the Nabob.
1775. Mortimer, Every Man his own Broker, p. 14' As to the nabob plunderers, these build palaces" (N. E. D.).
1778. Anon., Oriental Magie; or, Harlequin Nabob. *)
1779. Mackenzie, The Mirror, No. 12 (The British Essayists,
XXXIV, 62): " families of Dukes, Earls, Lords,
Nabobs, or Contractors."
1780. Lee, The Chapter of Accidents, III, 3: "I could dethrone fifty Nabobs." 2)
1780. Anon., The Fair Refugee, IV, 3: "Nothing like Jews and Nabobs nowadays."
1781. Andrews, Dissipation, III, 2: "That nabobs wife . . . . overcame me."
1785. Mackenzie, The Lounger, No. 11 (The British Essayists, XXXVI, 68): . which made him give up all thoughts of becoming a Nabob" (Mr. Mushroom). 1785 (?) Anon., The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob (Sir Simon Lollop).
1789. Reynolds, The Dramatist, III, 2: .... some rich old Nabob
1789. Andrews, Epilogue to The Dramatist:
Then the Side-Boxes, what delightful Rows!
Peers, Poets, Nabobs, Jews3), and 'Prentice Beaux.
1795. Burns, Heron Election Ball, II, 2: As to his fine Nabob fortune, we'11 e'en let this subject alane (N. E. D.).
*) A lost entertainment (Nicoll, op. cit., p. 338).
2) The meaning of the word Nabob is not clear here; it may also refer to a ruler in India.
s) It is of course not mere chance that the words Nabobs and Jews are placed side by side here. These two classes of people were considered to have obtained their wealth unlawfully. In Foote's The Nabob Sir Matthew Mite is in close contact with two Jews. The Israelites depicts a Jew and a Nabob, who are joint guardians to a young lady. And in The Fair Refugee; or, The Rival Jews Miss Kitty, a girl about town, says to Miss Nancy, Mr. Solomons'
mistress: " you have the pleasant time. Nothing like Jews and Nabobs
nowadays" (Act IV, sc. 3).



1797- Morton, ^4 Cwn? for the Heart-Ache (Vortex, its chief
character, is a Nabob).
1797. Anon., 772e Nabob Outwitted. x)
1797. Cumberland, False Impressions, III, 1: "I've plundered no nabob."
From this list, which is probably fairly complete for the characters of Nabobs, it will be apparent that during the last three decades of the eighteenth century writers of fiction paid considerable attention to them. It is interesting to note that Macaulay confirms this when he writes in his essay on Lord Clive: . during a space of about thirty years, the whole lighter literature of England was coloured by the feelings which we have described." 2) The list also shows us that references to Nabobs are few and far bet ween during Smollett's life, and that the first Nabob makes his appearance in literature in 1772. Bee 3) speaks of "the new gentry of the year 1772" in his introduction to Foote's The Nabob, and Belden 4) remarks in his work on Foote: "In 1772 the natural subject for his muse was Indian nabobs."
All these facts seem to prove that The Israelites was written after this date. Even if it were composed some years earlier, Smollett could not very well have been its author. He went to Italy in 1767 on account of his delicate health, and remained there till his death in 1771. During his stay in this country he busied himself with the writing of his masterpiece Humphry Clinker, a work which rises so high above The Israelites in characterisation, diction and style, that it seems absurd to assume that the two works were written at about the same time by the same person. Even if we knew for certain that Smollett was the author of the play we are considering, we could only account for this fact by taking for granted that he had composed it as a young man, when he tried his hand at a tragedy and at a comedy. This cannot possibly have been the case, however, as the word Nabob was not used in the connotation referred to above, until Smollett was already well on
J) A lost farce (Nicoll, op. cit., p. 337).
2) Historical Essays, p. 623 (pub. Collins).
3) Jon Bee, The Works of Samuel Foote, London, 1830, vol. III, p. 132.
') Belden, op. cit., p. 146.



in the forties. Moreover, at that time his attitude towards the Jews was less kind than when he wrote Count Fathom.x) It is much more probable that the play was written in or about 1785, the year in which it was submitted to the Lord Chamberlain and in which it was produced at Govent Garden. The favourable picture of the Jew is also more in keeping with the spirit of the time about the year 1785 than with the feelings which prevailed some twenty years earlier, when enlightened views with regard to the Israelites had not yet penetrated as far as England. The supposition that the piece dates from this time also seems to be supported by a reference in the play itself. In Act II, sc. 3, Mrs. Wrinkle remarks: "Italy and America have opened their ports for neglected widows." Although the meaning of this sentence is somewhat obscure, we are tempted to infer from it that no allusion would have been made to the harbours of America, if the war between this country and England (1775—1783) was still raging at the time when The Israelites was written. In view of these arguments it is perhaps advisable to attribute the play no longer to Smollett, but to assume that it was composed about 1785 by a dramatist who was influenced by Joshua Manasseh in Count Fathom.
The Israelites cannot have been a direct response to Cumberland's appeal for a play with a sympathetic Jew in No. 38 of The Observer 2), for the piece in question was staged on April 1, 1785, and the first volume of Cumberland's essays [including No. 38] was probably issued in the same month, for a notice of its appearance is to be found in The Gentleman s Magazine for May, 1785. 3)
Why the play under review should have met with a cold reception at its first representation, is not very clear. It is true, it is only a mediocre production, but scores of them were performed in the latter part of the eighteenth century with more applause. The plot, though mainly conventional, is not illcontrived, and the dialogue cannot be said to be entirely devoid
x) See pp. 48, 49-
2) See p. 66.
3) S. T. Williams, op. cit., p. 219: "Notice of the publication of The Observer may be found in The Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1785*



of humour. Was it the favourable conception of the Jew which prevented the piece from becoming popular? The public had perhaps been accustomed too long to ridiculous and despicable stage Jews to hail his very antipode with enthusiasm. Deeprooted prejudices, supported by superstition and fanaticism, were probably still too strong to be eradicated so suddenly. To accomplish this a more po werf ul and more eloquent appeal was necessary. Nine years still had to elapse before Richard Cumberland made this appeal in The Jew.
Although the literary merit of The Israelites may not be very great, the play is not only interesting for the investigator of the eighteenth century stage Jew, but is also of considerable importance from a sociological point of view, because it reveals the first feeble attempt in English drama to depict the Jew as a serious character.
The Fair Refugee; or, The Rival Jews,*) a five-act comedy to which we have already made a few references, was performed at the Haymarket in 1785, but not in the regular season, as the Biographia Dramatica informs us. 2) Like the other pieces discussed in this chapter, it was never printed. This is all that has been hitherto published about The Fair Refugee.
The title-page of the manuscript states that the play had been written as early as 1780. On the outside of the MS. occurs the date 1784, which is probably the year in which it was submitted to the Lord Chamberlain. The list of dramatis personae mentions two Israelites: Solomons, a Beau Jew, and his cousin Levi, a 'Change Alley Jew. These two worthies act such important parts in the play, that our first task will be to give an epitome of it.
The fair refugee is Eliza Wentworth, an American lady, with whom Colonel George Granby has fallen in love during a campaign in the New World, the time of the action being the American War of Independence. Unfortunately the young man has lost sight of her after his return to his native country. Dennis, his Irish servant, discovers at last that the lady is
*) H. M. Larpent 24. M.
2) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 214.
14



living in London with her aunt, Mrs. Dornbush. At the same time Sir Gregory Granby informs his son George that he has found a wife for him, one Miss Harcourt, a rich heiress. When the scene has been shifted to the house of Mrs. Dornbush, we learn that this lady has determined to marry her ward and niece to Mr. Solomons, "the civillest little gentleman in the world", as she calls him. The Jew, who is "as rich as the mines of Mexico", has settled one thousand pounds a year on Eliza and three hundred on her aunt. To Waddie, his confidant, who has arranged everything for him relating to the marriage, he says1) that he does not intend to live with his wife: "No man of true breeding marries nowadays with an intention of living with his wife; nor does a woman of true spirit ever dream of domestic happiness. To be in the true Ton, a man must consider his wife as the principal of his mistresses; that is like the reigning Sultana of the Seraglio." In the same scene we make the acquaintance of Levi, of whom Mr. Solomons has not a very high opinion: ". . . . he has no more of the gentleman about him than if Duke's place had been the spot of his education; and by his English one would swear he was born in the Jew's Quarter in Amsterdam." Later on he calls him "that little, ill-looking fellow", and Miss Nancy, one of Solomons' mistresses, speaks of him as the "ugliest creature you ever saw." When the Beau Jew reproaches his cousin with his looking so little like a gentleman, and adds that he is quite a "disparagement to his parts", Levi answers: "Shentlemans! I have de moneysh, dat make de Shentlemans in dish countrie and everywhere elshe." Another instance of Mr. Solomons' thinking no small beer of himself is the following: "I am a gentleman, there's a carriage, there's an air, look in the glass (placing Levi by his side), now you see the difference between a Jew and a gentleman."
The dialogue between the two cousins is interesting as unequivocally revealing the author's unsympathetic attitude towards the Jews. In order to prejudice his audience against this people he depicts two grotesque figures, the one a dandy, the other a boor, who serve as foils to each other. Both are most des-
') The Fair Refugee, Act II, sc. i.



picable characters, however, Mr. Abraham Solomons on account of his boasting, his licentiousness and his extravagance, and Mr. Levi Solomons because of his vulgar manners, his avarice and his stupidity. The former has only two aims in life, namely to live like a gentleman and to be buried like a true Jew: "To pass my time like a gentleman I have provided myself with one of the finest wives, three of the handsomest mistresses, and six of the most beautiful horses in England. And that I may be buried like a true Jew, I have procured a whole shipload of Jerusalem earth, in which I'll be laid with my face downwards." We are told that it was only a few years ago that he had resolved to become a gentleman. An officer to whom he had applied to procure the release of some members of his tribe who had refused to bear arms in defence of their country, had sent him word, after the Jew had communicated to him that a gentleman of the name of Solomons wished to see him, that he had never heard of a gentleman of that name. Then he had begun to learn French, philosophy, oratory, fencing and shooting. He now intends to complete his education by attending a few matrimonial lectures from the Hymeneal Doctor in Pall-Mall in order "to mend his breed!"
Waddie, "the jackall of pleasures to the Israelite", as he is styled, is the villain of the play. Taking advantage of Mr. Solomons' carelessness, he has succeeded in falsifying the Jew's documents, thinking that this will enable him to marry Eliza, whom he intends to carry off. In order to accomplish this, he affects to make love to Mrs. Dornbush, who is to be entertained by one Mr. Scandal, a poor author, while Waddie is executing his designs.
Meanwhile Levi calls on Miss Nancy, one of his cousin's mistresses, and presents her with diamond rings and buckles. At the entrance of Mr. Abraham Solomons, Levi hides himself in a cabinet. When the former tells Nancy that the jewels are false, she opens Levi's hiding-place, calls him a smouch, and threatens to tear his eyes out. The frightened Jew shrinks back into a corner of the room.
Mr. Scandal resolves to reveal Waddle's schemes to Colonel Granby. This results in the exposure of the unfaithful servant in the presence of all the persons concerned, who fling their



taunts at him. His master, Mr. Solomons, says: "he has no more gratitude than a Dutchman;" Mrs. Dornbush exclaims: "He has no more Christianity than a Jew." x) When Mr. Solomons understands that he is going to lose "the fair refugee", he threatens George and Eliza to bring an action against them. Needless to say that there is a happy ending: Sir Gregory Granby consents to the marriage between his son and Eliza.
There is a great deal of rant and bombast in The Fair Refugee, especially when the author vents his patriotic feelings and his aversion to France. The stilted dialogue and the long digressions cannot but have induced a desire to yawn in the audience. The best scenes are those in which Mr. Solomons and his cousin occur, which, though highly offensive to Jews, are undoubtedly amusing. Little Levi with his uncouth appearance, his awful gibberish, and his stupidity must have offered a splendid opportunity for a skilful actor, especially in that part where the author exhibits the Jew's avarice and cowardliness.
In The Fair Refugee we can tracé the influence of The Beggar's Opera (1728) and The Provoked Husband (1728), which also refer to a licentious Jew, of The Harlot s Progress ( 1 733) > The Jew Decoyed (1735) and Miss Lucy in Town (1742), all of which depict Jews who keep mistresses. The Beggar's Opera is even mentioned by one of the characters in The Fair Refugee:
Kitty. Ah, Miss Nancy, you have the pleasant time. Nothing like Jews and Nabobs nowadays. A Lord what with raising regiments and expences of encampment is hardly worth seeing.
Nancy. Why true, Miss Kitty, in regard of money and presents they do pretty well. And as they are not the most agreable fellows, as the lady in the Beggar's Opera says, tis right they should pay. 2)
Mr. Solomons' licentiousness has been sufficiently illustrated already. That his cousin is a match for him in this respect
l) The Fair Refugee, Act V, sc. 3.
3) ibid., Act IV, sc. 3.



appears from his own confession: "I love de voomans" 1), and from the fact that he pays a visit to the other Jew's mistress.
To the several proofs of the author's hostility towards the Jews already quoted one more should be added. Dennis, the Irish servant, says in Act II, sc. 2: "A Jew! Ooh! let him take care we don't catch him here, or by my faith he'11 stand a nasty chance of undergoing a good beating;" and to the author's; unkind attitude the abominable jargon in which Levi indulges; and which makes his cousin say: "You have a damned Jew's dialect",2) bears further testimony.
A Specimen of Jewish Courtship, 3) a one-act entertainment performed at Drury Lane on April 23, 1787 for the benefit of Baddeley, has two Jewish characters, Shadrach Moses and Miss Leah Ephraims4). The former was personated by Baddeley, the latter by Bannister (1760—1836), another leading actor of the time, of whom the Dictionary of National Biography gives the foliowing enconium: "The stage can point to few men of more solid virtues or unblemished character"5) Jewish Courtship was played as a prelude to The Mistake of a Minute, a piece that was acted only once and was never printed 6), and that contains nothing of Jewish interest. The letter in which permission is asked to have A Specimen of Jewish Courtship performed, is signed by Linley, R. B. Sheridan's father-in-law.
Jewish Courtship may be considered a sequel to Jewish Education (1784),. The latter piece, it will be remembered, is a conversation between Moses and his son Shadrac; the former is a dialogue between the son, who is now called Shadrach Moses, and his sweetheart Miss Leah Ephraims, whoses name is also mentioned in the latter part of Jewish Education. From the fact that this flimsy production was deemed worthy of a sequel, one might infer that it had met with a favourable reception in 1784.
The contents of A Specimen of Jewish Courtship are as
*) The Fair Refugee, Act II, sc. 1.
3) ibid.
3) H. M. Larpent 44. M.
4) Genest (vol. VI, p. 435) writes Miss Lear Ephraims. This mistake was copied by Landa (op. cit., p. 109).
6) Dict. of Nat. Biogr. vol. III, p. 144.
•) Genest, op. cit., vol. VI, p. 435.



follows: Shadrach and Leah intend to spend an afternoon in a pleasure garden, dressed in the beautiful clothes which their fathers have in pawn from several fashionable people. Bef ore giving her consent to accompany the young man, Leah says that she has conscientious scruples: Shadrach has been seen eating with Christians by her father. When he is about to swear that it is not true, Leah says: "Have a care what you do: I am sure mine Papa, would not teil me a lie, doa he is obliged to teil a great many in the way of trade to cheat the Christians. But indeed dat ish no shin, for de Christians have no scruple of conscience in sheating the Jews." Shadrach then tells her that one day when he had seen her father, Mr. Solomon Ephraims, eating pork, the latter had forced him to swallow a piece of it. Leah refuses to believe this, unless he swears it. When he asks for the Book, she says:"We have never a book in de house, but de book of interest", which makes the young man remark: "And dat ish de best book a Jew can swear upon, for he makes it his guide in every action of his life." When the girl refuses to be kissed by Shadrach, he turns the tables on her, saying that he knows much to her discredit. He accuses her of having eaten lobster and eel one day. She cannot deny this and tries to excuse herself by replying: "I believe every Jew will eat de Christians meat if he can do it slyly." The end of it is that they resolve to feast on roast pig that afternoon!
It is impossible not to be astonished at the fact that Linley could think trashy stuff like this suitable material for his theatre, and that Bannister with his "solid virtues" and "unblemished character" could stoop to caricature in this manner a people of whom Lecky, the great Irish historian, writes in his History of England in the Eighteenth Century: . . they were among the most harmiess, industrious and useful members of the community."1) Reading pieces like Jewish Education and Jewish Courtship nowadays, one can but be amazed at the peculiar taste of the late eighteenth century audiences, which could relish such worthless and offensive productions.
Before parting finally with the tedious piece we are reviewing, two more remarks should be made. In the first place, it
l) Lecky, op. cit., I, p. 263.



must be considered highly probable that Jewish Education and Jewish Courtship were composed by the same dramatist, for the latter play is simply a continuation of the former and shows the same diction and style. In the second place, as it has been contended x) that the stage Jewess is always a lovable figure, the fact should be emphasized here that in eighteenth century fiction and drama the Jewess is represented as almost as unlovable a character as the Jew.
Of The Diamond Ring; or, The Jew Outwitted nothing is known beyond the fact that it was performed as an entertainment at Royal Grove (also called Astley's Amphitheatre) on July 27, 1788. It is doubtful whether we have an original piece here. The title, the sub-title, and the fact that it was only an entertainment might lead to the supposition that the piece was nothing else but a reworking of Act IV of The Fair Refugee, where Levi gives false diamond rings to Miss Nancy and is outwitted by his cousin. We have already remarked in the course of this chapter that that scene was certainly not the worst in the play. It is therefore not impossible that the author, understanding that his play had failed because it was so long and tedious, revived the most interesting part of it under the title of The Diamond Ring; or, The Jew Outwitted.
Mordecai's Beard2) was acted as an interlude at Drury Lane on April 20, 1790, again for Mr. Baddeley's benefit, who played the part of Mordecai. The title, which first ran The Jew's Beard was, as we can see in the manuscript, changed into Mordecai's Beard afterwards. We do not know who made this alteration, the author himself or Kemble, the manager of Drury Lane, but we are inclined to assume that on second thoughts the original title was deemed too objectionable.
Although no less flimsy a playlet than Jewish Education and Jewish Courtship, it is much more interesting, partly because there is more action in it, but chiefly because the author's attitude towards the Jews differs somewhat from that displayed in the other two. The theme is soon told. A Jew pedlar called
*) See p. 185.
H. M. Larpent 51. M.



Mordecai passes the house of an Irish chairman, named 0 Strap, who wants to sell an old threadbare coat to him. A quarrel about the price ensues, which gives rise to the following dialogue:
Jew. As I have a soul to be shav'd dere is noding can be done vid it but to make rag-mops — dere ish not upon my soul. O'Strap. Your soul! Is it for a Jew Cloaths Man to have a soul? Jew. Dosn't you dink a Jew Cloaths Man has a soul As
veil as an Irish Chairman.
O'Strap. No, to be sure he has not, how de devil can a man have a soul that does not eat pork.
Mordecai gets very angry at these words and reproaches the Irishman with having been turned out of court for taking money to swear both for plaintiff and defendant. Out of revenge O Strap greases the Jew's beard with a piece of bacon, saying: "If I can t convert your whole body, I will at least christen your beard, my jewel." Mordecai resolves to make money out of the af fair and goes to the office of the Justice to take out a warrant for assault. On the way he licks his beard and thinks the grease so delicious that he almost forgets to leave a few marks to show to the Justice. He also sings a song, part of which should be quoted here, as it illustrates his character:
I was once but a pedlar and my shop was in my box
So sure as I'm a smoush and my name is Mordecai,
And I cheated all the world in spite of whipping posts and stocks,
For I never sticks for trifles when there's money in the way.
I had gold rings of copper gilt and so I got my bread
With sealing wax of brick dust, and pencils without lead.
The Irishman, afraid that "the little Israelite" (whom he also calls "the saucy rascal of a Jew" and "the old Gizzard ) will have the best of the argument if he comes first, determines to go to the Justice as quickly as he can in order to forestall his opponent. The judge, after hearing the two versions of the story, pronounces the following sentence: "You are both notorious characters, and not to be trusted, though there is some probability in your story, Moses, and if you will take my advice, you will give him half a crown to make it up. He then continues to the Irishman: "It is a mild sentence, and I hope will teach



you to respect the benign laws of this country, which protect equally men of all religions, and opinions, and I hope the day is not far distant, when by a proper attention to the morals of the lower orders of the people, they will learn and understand that in this land of liberty, the Jew, the Mahometan, the Gentoo, and men of all countrys and religions are equally protected in the pursuits of their lawful avocations with the native Englishman."
The habit of making the Jew in fiction and drama swear by all that is holy and of making him commit per jury is very conspicuous in Mordecai's Beard. This love of swearing is again a traditional trait of the Jew in literature. Scott's Jew in Ivanhoe (1819) has the same propensity. In ch. XXII Isaac of York says to Front-de-Bouf: "I swear to you, noble knight, by all which I believe, and by all which we believe in common —" The Norman interrupts him with: "Perjure not thyself." *)
The obvious moral of the piece is that the average Christian is not better than the average Jew, and that they should therefore be treated alike. The author of Mordecai's Beard is probably the same as that of JewishCourtship and Jewish Education, for we hear the same twaddle about pork, perjury, sealingwax made from brick-dust, etc. It is not impossible that the actor Baddeley, for whose benefit the three pieces were performed, and who played a part in each of them, was also their author. If the same writer was responsible for Mordecai's Beard and the other two productions, he clearly grew more tolerant in the course of time, for humanitarian sentiments like those uttered by the Justice, bear witness to the influence of the principles of the French Revolution. The play ends oddly enough with a long panegyric on freemasonry, in which the author again voices his humane views:
Religion's all enlightning page
We spread before our eyes,
By which we are taught those steps to tracé
That lead us to the skies.
The Summum Bonum hence we learn
To which true Masonry tends:
*) In Reade's It is Never Too Late to Mend (1856) Isaac Levi says: 'a swear by the tables of the law," etc. (Part I, ch. I).



Our brethren as ourselves to love And all mankind as friends.
The good Samaritan to prove To all and everywhere.
The Jew and the Gentile is the last of these unpublished plays. This burlesque was performed at the Royal Circus on Sept. 24, 1795. Nicollx) classifies it among the anonymous plays, but the Biographia Dramatica2) mentions J. C. Cross as the author. This playwright, who died in 1810, wrote a large number of musical dramas, entertainments, pantomimes and spectacles, among which is another Jew play, called The False Friend; or, The Assassin of the Rocks, a kind of ballet or opera, produced at the Royal Circus on Aug. 25, 1806. This will not be discussed here, being beyond our scope; but one feature of it should be recorded, namely that Zaluch, the Jewish figure in the drama, is a by no means unlovable character: he is an honest man, and shows his gratitude to those who have saved his life in a very liberal way. It is tempting to hazard from this that, if Cross is really the author of The Jew and the Gentile, he also portrayed a good Jew in The False Friend, in which case its loss would be all the more regrettable, as congenial Jews are so scarce in eighteenth century fiction and drama. But this conclusion does not hold good in all cases. A benevolent Jew in a particular play or novel may often be considered as an atonement for a less amiable Jewish character in one of the earlier works of the same author. Examples of this have already been given in preceding sections (Smollett, Miss Edgeworth and Dickens); another instance is to be found in the following chapter.
The investigation of the unpublished Jew plays of the latter part of the eighteenth century will have convinced the reader that, as regards the treatment of the Jew in drama, there is already a turn of the tide discernible in the course of the eighties, and not, as Landa 3) believes, as late as the year 1794, when Cumberland produced The Jew.
') Nicoll, op. cit., p. 333.
2) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 334.
®) Landa, op. cit., p. 127.



CHAPTER XIV
CUMBERLAND'S JEW PLAYS
Much has already been said about Richard Cumberland (1732—1811) regarding his attitude towards the Jews in his prose-works. We shall now deal with his plays. Cumberland, who has been styled "no mean rival of Goldsmith and Sheridan" 1), was immortalized by the former in Retaliation (1774), in which he called him "The Terence of England, the mender of hearts", and by the latter in the character of Sir Fretful Plagiary in The Critic (1779). His first play, The Summer's Tale, was produced in 1765. The piece that made him famous was The West Indian (1771), in which he mentions the word Jew for the first time in the phrase "as rich as a Jew", an expression which, as we have seen, was in great favour with eighteenth century novelists and dramatists.
The first of Cumberland's comedies that interests us here is The Fashionable Lover, acted at Drury Lane on Jan. 20, 1772. The plot is as follows. At the death of his wife, Mr. Aubrey, before going abroad, commits his little daughter Augusta to the care of Mr. Bridgemore, a rich London merchant. When he returns after eighteen years, he discovers that the guardian has not been true to his trust, and that Augusta has been obliged to leave the house in order to escape the persecutions of Lord Aberville. After many tribulations the young lady eventually marries Tyrrel, the man of her choice.
Mr. Bridgemore is the villain of the piece, and Naphtali, the Jew, is his jackal. The latter was played by F. C. Waldron, the author of the drama The Contrast; or, The Jew and the Married Courtesan (1775). Naphtali has many characteristics of the traditional stage Jew: he is little, ugly, clever at financial transactions, and speaks an abominable jargon, of which we have already given a specimen. 3)
J) Nicoll, op. cit., p. 129.
2) The West Indian, Act II, sc. 1.
*) See p. 116.



Bridgemore, under cover of the Jew, plays the usurer to Lord Aberville, who, at the advice of his friend Sir Harry Gamble, has resolved to employ Naphtali, because his own Jew is "fairly jaded" and Sir Harry's is probably better trained. Naphtali, like his master, is a callous and unprincipled individual; he regards war and the plague as welcome means to make money. The designs of this pair of rascals are frustrated by Mortimer, Tyrrel's benevolent uncle. Bridgemore is exposed, and is compelled to refund what he has stolen from Mr. Aubrey.
As the Jew's part is only a very small one, we can dismiss The Fashionable Lover, after recording a couple of uncomplimentary references to the Jews. The Scotchman Colin, Lord Aberville's servant, remarks, when speaking of his master's monetary troubles: . when a man borrows money of a Jew, 'tis a presumption no Christian can be found to lend him any," and adds "that every losing gamester has his Jew." x) When Mr. Mortimer warns Mr. Aubrey to have an eye to the Jew , the latter replies: "Trust him to me: I'm pretty well accustomed to their dealings." 2)
Cumberland's creation of Naphtali and the references quoted show clearly that his opinion of the Jews was anything but favourable in the year 1772, and that he was influenced by the example of his predecessors. In ch. IV we have seen that he changed his attitude in 1785, and several reasons for his conversion have been there suggested.
Although there can be no doubt that Cumberland was the writer of the letter 3) signed by Abraham Abrahams and printed in No. 38 of The Observer, it is by no means impossible that he had received a hint from somebody else. A similar thing happened, as the reader will remember, in the case of Maria Edgeworth and Charles Dickens. It is remarkable that these two authors, like Smollett and Cumberland, fall from one extreme into another, as regards their treatment of the Jew. This not only applies to Cumberland's Abrahams when compared with Naphtali, but also to Sheva in The Jew.
*) The Fashionable Lover, Act II, sc. 1.
2) ibid., Act V, sc. 1.
3) See p. 66.



This successful five-act comedy was staged at Drury Lane on May 8, 1794. It would be interesting to know why nine years had to elapse before the suggestion made in 1785 was realized. The only explanation seems to be that Cumberland, not wishing to give the Jews "a kind of lift in a new comedy" himself, waited patiently, till some other dramatist should undertake this difficult and perhaps ungrateful task. And as nobody appeared to be inclined to try his hand at the portrayal of a benevolent Israelite, Cumberland feit it his duty to set to work himself, and at last, at the age of sixty-two, produced his notable comedy at a time when the popular mind could be expected to be favourable for the reception of a philanthropic Jew.
Before examining this interesting drama, we ought to pay some attention to a few other plays which were performed before The Jew, and which, witness more or less unfriendly references, still reflect the older point of view.
Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne (1730—1792), in The Heiress, a successful comedy that was acted at Drury Lane on Jan. 14, 1786, was the first eighteenth century dramatist to mention Jewish fences. When Clifford, who is making love
to Tiffany, asks: " would you run away with that also" (refer-
ring to his heart), the girl replies: "Oh, yes, and an hundred more; and melt them all down together as the Jews do stolen goods to prevent their being reclaim'd — Gold, silver and lead; pray, Sir, of what metal may your's be." x) The Jewish fence occurs in drama as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. In Daborne's A Christian turned Turk (1610) Benwash, a Jew, is also a receiver of stolen goods. 2)
In the two-act farce Two Strings to your Bow, performed at Govent Garden on Febr. 16, 1791, "with distinguished applause", as the title-page of the second edition informs us, the author, Robert Jephson (1730—1803), makes Lazarillo, a servant, observe to Borachio, an hotel-keeper: ". . . . you might as well put a Hebrew Jew 3) into the same stall at church with the Grand Inquisitor." 4)
x) The Heiress, Act IV, sc. 1.
2) See p. 31.
3) For other instances of this expression see p. 59.
4) Two Strings to your Bow, Act II, sc. 2.



The Road to Ruin next calls for our attention. This famous comedy was written by Thomas Holcroft (1745—1809), and enacted at Govent Garden in Febr. 1792. *) Though the author gives evidence of his humanitarian views in the prologue, part of which we already quoted in another place 2), his attitude towards the Jews, as revealed in the play itself, tells another story. Harry Dornton, who is on "the road to ruin" through his extravagance, says to his companion Goldfinch, a boastful and foppish youth: "It [i. e. the world] says you have got into the hands of jockeys, Jews, and swindlers."3) When Goldfinch is straitened for money, he goes to Silky, an unscrupulous usurer. John Quick (1748—1831), who had already scored success with the interpretation of Jewish characters like Mordecai in Love d la Mode and Isaac Mendoza in The Duenna, played Silky. There is no indication that the latter is Jewish, but mention is made of Aaron the Jew4), with whom he holds secret conferences:
Silky. For all you know the last annuity I had of you, I gave a full hundred more than was offered by your friend Aaron the Jew.
Goldf. My friend! Your friend! You collogue together.
When Silky seems unwilling to help him, Goldfinch changes his tactics and from being insolent he becomes insulting:
Goldf. Then some other Jew must.
Silky. Jew! Hear you! This is to be the friend of an ungrateful spendthrift. Calls me Jew! I, who go to morning prayers every day of my life, and three times to tabernacle on a Sunday.
Goldf. Yes, you cheat all day, tremble all night, and act the hypocrite the first thing in the morning. 5)
1) in 1794 a Dutch translation appeared at Amsterdam in the Spectatoriaale Schouwburg, entitled Dornton, of de Jeugdige Losheid en Uitsporige Kinderliefde.
2) See p. 69.
8) The Road to Ruin, Act II, sc. i.
4) In Fanny Burney's Cecilia (1782) there is also a character named Aaron the Jew. See p. 58.
6) The Road to Ruin, Act II, sc. 3.



It is perfectly obvious from these quotations that Holcroft's views were in reality not so broad us one would conclude from the prologue to The Road to Ruin, in which he asserts that "every man is our brother".
In The Irishman in London; or, The Happy African (Govent Garden, April 21, 1792), written by William Macready (1755— 1829), one character says: . .it's a shame your mistress never found out that fellow, that advertises to whiten ladies' hands and faces, the limping Jew, he'd make you fair as a daisy."
The following striking remark, which I found in the introduction of an edition of The Merchant of Venice 2) of the year 1794, is perhaps not without interest either: . . . though we are totally against giving prejudiced ideas against any set of people, especially a race so rejected as the Jews have been, and are yet; still as among their tribes, in common with the rest of mankind, several Shylocks no doubt have been, our author judiciously saw, that making his principal an Israelite, would place him in a stronger point of view." Although the latter part of this observation is open to controversy, the first part is all the more important as bearing testimony to the humanitarian movement which characterized the last years of the eighteenth century.
Let us now return to The Jew. The Prologue does not leave us in doubt as to Cumberland's object:
— Oh! that my stroke Cou'd strip that creeper from the British oak.
This sentence evidently expresses his earnest desire to be successful in freeing the public mind in England, and especially the English stage, from its unjust prejudices against the Jews. The following lines are also noteworthy:
'Tis but one species in the whole extent Of prejudice, at which our shaft is sent,
*) The Irishman in London, Act II, sc. i.
2) The Merchant of Venice, as performed at the Theatre Royal, regulated from the Prompt-books, with an Introduction, London, 1794.



'Tis but the simple lesson of the heart —
Judge not the man by his exterior part:
Virtue's strong root in every soil will grow,
Rich ores lie buried under piles of snow.
If to your candour we appeal this night
For a poor cliënt, for a luckless wight,
Whom Bard ne'er favoured, whose sad fate has been
Never to share in one applauding scene,
In souls like yours there should be found a place
For every victim of unjust disgrace.
This was not the first time that Cumberland appealed for a "poor cliënt". The eradication of the popular prejudices against the Jews was only part of the much more comprehensive task which he had set himself. It was his purpose to be an advocate for "the victims of national, professional, or religious prejudices." *) In The West Indian (1771) he championed the Irishman, who had so often been a butt of ridicule for the Englishman; in The Fashionable Lover (1772) he drew a favourable picture of the much abused Scotchman, and in The Country Attorney (1787) he endeavoured to overcome vulgar prejudices against the profession of the attorney. In the course of this chapter we shall have occasion to see how far the author succeeded in answering the expectations raised by the Prologue; but first we shall give an analysis of the plot of the play.
An austere and miserly merchant, Sir Stephen Bertram, dismisses his clerk Charles Ratcliffe, because his son, Frederick Bertram, has fallen in love with the penniless Eliza Ratcliffe, Charles's sister. When Sir Stephen is informed that his son has already married the lady, he disinherits him. The latter has recourse to Sheva, an opulent Jewish broker and moneylender, from whom he intends to borrow three hundred pounds. Sheva, after the manner of all usurers, first prevaricates; then he invites him to come to his office in Duke's place to settle the matter. When Frederick has gone, Sheva seems to regret his promise to help the young man, and delivers a soliloquy
l) S. T. Williams, Richard Cumberland, his Life and Dramatic Works, Newhaven, 1917, p. 325-



which gives us an insight into his enigmatical character: "I shall be ruined, starved, wasted to a watch-light. Bowels, you shall pinch for this; 1*11 not eat flesh this fortnight; I'll suck the air for nourishment.... but soft, a word, friend Sheva! Art thou not rich? Monstrous rich, abominably rich? And yet thou livest on a crust. Be it so! Thou dost stint thine appetites to pamper thine affections: thou dost make thyself to live in poverty, that the poor may live in plenty." x)
While Sheva is still soliloquizing, Charles Ratcliffe enters, his heart full of bitterness against the man who has ruined his mother and his sister by dismissing him so undeservedly. Seeing Sheva, he says to himself: "Why, this Jew, this usurer, this enemy to our faith, whose heart is in his bags, would not have used me thus." When it appears that Sheva had had a mother of whom he had been very fond, the conversation develops as follows:
Chas. Thou hast affections, feelings, charities —
Sheva. I am a man, sir, call me how you please.
Chas. I'll call you Christian then; and this proud merchant, Jew.
Sheva, who does not like this answer, because it is a compliment and a taunt at the same time, replies:
Sheva. I shall not thank you for that compliment.
Chas. And hadst thou not a sister, too?
Sheva. No; no sister, no broder, no son, no daughter! I am a solitary being — a waif on the world's wide common. Chas. And thou hast hoarded wealth, till thou art sick with gold. Thy bags run over with the spoils of usury, thy veins are glutted with the blood of prodigals and gamesters.
Sheva. I have enough; something perhaps to spare.
Chas. And I have nothing, nothing to spare but miseries, with which my measure overflows. By heaven, it racks my soul to think that those beloved sufferers should want, and this thing so abound! 2)
M The Jew, Act I, sc. i. ») ibid.
IS



The Jew answers that he has got what he possesses, little by little, working hard and "pinching his own bowels." He invites Charles, who had rescued him from a howling London mob the day before, to go home with him in order to show him what no man has ever seen: Sheva's real heart. Having arrived at the house, the Jew drinks Charles's health in a glass of water, saying: "Wine is heating, water is cooling, wine costs moneys, water comes for nothing. I was very empty before; my stomach was era ving, now I am quite content." When Charles alludes to the seeming contradictions in Sheva's character and says that he gives away his money with the generosity of a prince and laments over it in the language of a miser, the Jew answers: "That is very true, I love my moneys, I do love them dearly; but I love my fellow-creatures a little better." They have not deserved it, however: "Your people do not love me, what business have I to love your people? I am a Jew; my fathers, up to Abraham, all were Jews. Merciless mankind, how you have persecuted them! My family is all gone — it is extinct; my very name will vanish out of memory when I am dead." x)
Frederick Bertram now calls to fetch his three hundred pounds. Sheva, not wishing the two young men to meet each other at his office, requests Charles to go into another room. Frederick informs the Jew that his father has expelled him from his house and that he cannot possibly repay the money he is going to borrow from Sheva. The young man is astonished when the latter hands him the bills all the same, saying: "Come, come, I pray you take them. They will hire you very pretty lodging, and you will be very happy with your pretty wife. I pray you, take them. Why will you be so hard with a poor Jew, as to refuse him a goot bargain. when you know he loves to lay his moneys out to profit and advantage?" When Frederick and his benefactor part, the happy young man exclaims: "Thou a miser! Thou art a prince." 2)
Sir Stephen reproaches Sheva, when the latter calls on him for a business matter, with furnishing his son with money
*) The Jew, Act II, sc. 2. 2) ibid.



secretly. "Wretch, miser, usurer!" he calls out, "you never yet let loose a single guinea from your gripe, but with a view of doubling it at the return. I know what you are." Sheva answers: "I am a Jew, a poor defenceless Jew; that is enough to make me miser, usurer. Alas! I cannot help it." The merchant is thunderstruck. when Sheva shows him a paper to the following effect: "Ten thousand pounds, invested in the three percents money, of Eliza, late Ratcliffe, now Bertram." The author then takes the Christian to task: "And what has Sheva done to be called a villain? I am a Jew, what then? Is that a reason none of my tribe should have a sense of pity? You have no great deal of pity yourself, but I do know many noble British merchants that abound in pity; therefore I do not abuse your tribe." When Sir Stephen hears that his daughterin-law is not a penniless girl, his attitude changes as a leaf upon a tree. A moment ago he called the Jew the most inveterate miser in existence. At parting he says: "Farewell, friend Sheva. Can you forgive me?" The noble Israelite answers: "I can forgive my enemy, much more my friend." x)
Sheva learns from Mrs. Goodison, a widow to whom he has also shown his charity, that Frederick and his wife are staying at her house for the time being, and that the bride's mother is nobody else but the widow of Don Carlos, who had once rescued him from an auto-da-fé at Cadiz. Only in the last act does Sir Stephen make the acquaintance of his daughter-inlaw. He is astonished to hear that she is still ignorant of her fortune. "Sheva, the Jew, surely you know the man?" he asks her. The merchant begins to doubt of Sheva's philanthropy, when he receives the prompt reply: "Thank heaven, I do not! I can safely say I never, to my recollection, heard the name before. Some vile impostor, I suppose?" 2) When the curtain is about to fall, everything is cleared up. Mrs. Ratcliffe recognizes in Sheva the Jew of Cadiz, who had been rescued from the clutches of the Inquisition by her late husband, and who is now ushered into the room by Charles with the words: "This is the man. My benefactor; yours, Eliza; Frederick's; yours,
x) The Jew, Act III, sc. 2. 2) ibid., Act V, sc. 2.



dear mother! all mankind's. The widow's friend, the orphan's father, the poor man's protector, the universal philanthropist." At these words the generous Jew covers his face with his hands and says: "Hush, hush! You make me hide my face .... I am not used to hear the voice of praise, and it oppresses me." After having announced that Charles Ratcliffe shall be his sole heir, Sheva winds up by saying: "I do not bury it (i. e. his wealth) in a synagogue, or any other pile; I do not waste it upon vanity, or public works; I leave it to a charitable heir, and build my hospital in the human heart." *)
Such, then, is a detailed analysis of the play that drew so much attention in the year 1794. It is at its best in the Jewish parts, where Sheva utters his noble sentiments. The style even rises to dramatic grandeur sometimes, for instance, when the old man complains of the feelings which the Christians in general, and the dramatists in particular, entertain towards his tribe: "We have no abiding-place on earth — no country, no home. Everybody rails at us, everybody flouts us, everybody points us out for their maygame and their mockery. If your playwriters want a butt or a buffoon, or a knave to make sport of, out comes a Jew to be baited and buffeted through five long acts, for the amusement of all good Christians. Cruel sport! Merciless amusement! Hard dealings for a poor stray sheep of the scattered flock of Abraham! How can you expect us to show kindness, when we receive none?"2)
A perusal of the whole play will convince every unprejudiced reader that it was a bold and noble attempt on the part of Cumberland to do justice to the Jews in drama and to atone for centuries of literary persecution. But — sad to relate — it was not successful, at least from an artistic point of view. Sheridan might have accomplished the task; but Cumberland's theatrical gifts were inadequate. The non-Jewish scenes are dull and uninteresting, and it is only Sheva who gives life and animation to the play. We listen with pleasure to the dialogues in which he takes a part, but we cannot help yawning when we hear the stilted language uttered by Frederick, Charles and
!) The Jew, Act V, sc. 2. 2) ibid., Act I, sc. 1.



Eliza. But for Sheva The Jew would be one of the flimsiest dramas ever printed. And when we then consider that its principal character — the munificent Israelite — is an utter failure from a psychological standpoint, we are fully justified in saying that Cumberland's attempt, however good his intentions may have been, did not answer the purpose.
That Sheva is an impossibility from a psychological point of view will be readily admitted when we consider the many contradictory elements in his character. He stints himself and his servants in the most incredible manner while acting the philanthropist towards perfect strangers. He begs a bit of dinner from a friend while many are feasting at his cost. He publicly whips a starving cat from his premises, but is confused when people discover his good actions. His sole purpose is to appear the re verse of what he really is. Misunderstanding and misjudgment by his fellow-citizens do not affect his benevolent deeds. He does not mind being called a miser, an uncharitable dog, a blood-sucker, an extortioner, a Shylock, a muckworm, a Jewish dog, a baboon, an imp of Beelzebub, and a villain; he goes on relieving suffering humanity. Nor does the contrast of his uncouth outward appearance and his inward nobility of soul render more probable a character so full of discrepancies.
Another great mistake committed by Cumberland is that he loses all sense of proportion in delineating the characteristic traits of his hero. The Jew is too miserly, too sentimental, too grateful, and too munificent to be an ordinary human being. Although a little exaggeration may sometimes be advisable to point a moral, too much of it is usually injurious to the object which it is desired to attain. In the case of Sheva it did a great deal of harm: his character became, to say the least of it, ridiculous and grotesque. It was however a happy circumstance for Cumberland that the late eighteenth century public as a whole failed to realize this, for the play is reported to have become an instantaneous success. In those days other standards were applied than in the twentieth century. It should also be borne in mind that a comedy with a sympathetic Jew as a hero was a novelty that must have appealed to an age full of sentimental humanitarianism. At any rate the play



held the stage for many years, edition after edition found eager readers, and it was translated into various languages. The first successes were largely due to two leading actors who had already shown considerable skill in acting Jewish parts. John Bannister, who interpreted Sheva, is said to have made the audience laugh and weep alternately, and of Richard Suett we read that he gave an admirable performance as Jabal, Sheva's servant.
The contemporary critic, too, had nothing but praise for Cumberland's new dramatic effort. The Universal Magazine for May 1794 says: "To conquer the illiberal prejudices of mankind and level the repulsive and uncharitable distinctions of sect and of country, have been objects, which [Cumberland] has nobly aimed at, and in which we have pleasure in admitting he has not been without success." 1) Other magazine critics call Sheva a portrait from life, and Boaden, the journalist, thought him "at least as natural a character as Shylock." 2) The Biographia Dramatica makes the following flattering remark about the charitable Jew: "It is but a just portrait of many originals of that nation in real life." 3)
There was, however, one class of people in Georgian England which gave no sign of appreciating the play, namely the Jews. They observed the deepest silence and sent no token of gratitude to the author. Cumberland himself remarks in his Memoirs: "The public prints gave the Jews credit for their sensibility in acknowledging my well-intended services: my friends gave me joy of honorary presents . . . but not a word from the lips, not a line did I receive from the pen of any Jew, though I have found myself in company with many of their nation." 4) The explanation which Sir Walter Scott gives of the attitude of the Jews to Cumberland's play, sounds very plausible: we cannot be surprised that the people in question feit a portrait in which they were rendered ludicrous as well as interesting to be something between an affront and a compliment." 5)
x) cf. S. T. Williams, op. cit., p. 232-
2) ibid., p. 234.
3) Baker, Reed, Jones, op. cit., II, p. 344.
4) Memoirs of Richard Cumberland,, Written by Himself, London, 1806, p. 457; Cf. Williams, op. cit., pp. 236, 237.
5) Scott, Lives of the Novelists, p. 132.



Later, however, the author's deserts were also recognized by the Jews: in 1911 the Jewish Historical Society commemorated the centenary of his death. x)
There can be no doubt that the play under review helped to further the Jewish cause. The stage has been called the pulse of popular life. This is certainly true of the eighteenth century stage, which served a didactic rather than an artistic purpose. The favourable reception of a play in which an honest Jew is the central figure was an unmistakable sign of the change which was taking place in the minds of the English people. This change was not brought about by Cumberland s drama, but was due to the spirit of the times, as we endeavoured to explain in an earlier chapter. The Jew, nevertheless, may be said to have helped not a little to promote that humanitarian movement which, after the turbulent years of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, produced men like Macaulay, Hazlitt, Gladstone and Lord John Russell, who constituted themselves champions of the cause of the Jews, and ultimately succeeded in improving their condition and emancipating them from their civil disabilities.
The opinion of modern critics regarding the character of Sheva is diametrically opposed to that expressed by contemporary reviewers. Williams remarks: "To the modern reader Sheva can seem only ludicrous. A mixture of sentimentality and bad humour, he is merely laughable." 2) And Nicoll says: "No man, Jew or Gentile, ever acted as Sheva did." 3)
In The Jew some comic relief is supplied by Jabal, Sheva's Israelitish servant, who voices his discontent with his master's frugality in a humorous manner. One specimen — part of a conversation between Jabal and Dorcas, Sheva's housekeeper —may serve as an illustration:
Dorcas. I warrant thou hast filled thy belly, cormorant. Jabal. I have not had a bellyful since I belonged to you.
You take care there shall be no fire in the kitchen;
master pro vides no prog upon the shelf; so, between
1) Landa, op. cit., p. 129.
2) Williams, op. cit., p. 235.
3) Nicoll, op. cit., p. 128.



you both, I have plenty of nothing but cold and hunger. Dorcas. Hunger, indeed! How should thy stomach ever be filled when there is no bottom to it ? 'Tis like the Dead Sea — fathomless.
Jabal. 'Tis like the Dead Sea so far, that neither fish nor flesh are to be found within it.1)
The idea of giving an avaricious Jew a clownish servant who has to expose his master's stinginess, was perhaps borrowed from Shakespeare. Launcelot Gobbo, Shylock's servant, also provides comic relief, and is also starved by his closefisted master. He mentions the latter circumstance in the course of his conversation with his father, Old Gobbo: "I am famished in his service", and adds jokingly: "you may teil every finger I have with my ribs." 2)
There is, however, another possibility. Landa, referring to the scene in which Cumberland illustrates Sheva's treatment of his servants, remarks: "This episode was obviously suggested by Fletcher's Women Pleased, in which Lopez starves his wife." 3) In this form Landa's observation is not very convincing; it is besides incomplete. In this drama, which is generally dated about 1620, Lopez, a sordid usurer, not only starves his wife Isabella, but also his hungry servant Penurio, who, like Jabal, forms a comic element in the play. 4) It is of course quite possible that this scene was present to Cumberland's mind when he planned the episode in question, but as Sheva, the benevolent usurer, is evidently meant as a kind of counterpart of Shylock, the revengeful usurer, and as to some extent Cumberland took Shakespeare's Jew as his model, it is highly probable that in Launcelot Gobbo we must see the prototype of Jabal. 6)
It is worth while to devote a few more words to this character, hitherto entirely ignored. The sentence just quoted from Landa
') The Jew, Act II, sc. 2.
2) The Merchant of Venice, Act II, sc. 2.
8) Landa, op. cit., p. 133.
•) Women Pleased, Act I, sc. 2.
6) It is perhaps worth noting that the names Jabal and Tubal (a minor Jewish figure in The Merchant of Venice) were both borrowed from Genesis IV (vv. 20, 22).



is, to the best of our knowledge, all that criticism has ever
said about this minor Jewish figure.
Jabal is a merry, but impudent fellow, who causes Dorcas a great deal of trouble by his constant appeals for food. He does not hesitate to listen at the key-hole, and to divulge his master's secrets to other people. Sheva, discovering this, resolves to dismiss him, but relents, when the old housekeeper pleads for him, saying: "He is the kindliest, willingest, goodnaturedest soul alive; the house will be a dungeon without Jabal. 1) In his heart of hearts he loves his master. When he hears that Sheva has been maltreated and abused, he regrets that he was not with him to defend him, and says: "I would have dealt the fellow that abused you, such a recompense in the fifth button, that my friend Mendoza should not have placed it better." 2) Although meant to be a Jew, Jabal has nothing Jewish about him. He even pokes fun at "flesh from the unclean beast." When Dorcas warns him not to touch it, he says: "No, to be sure, our people have never tasted bacon since they camé out of the land of Ham." 3) Sallies like these, in which Jabal now and then indulges, may account for the lack of appreciation of Cumberland's comedy among contemporary Jews.
This was not the only time when a late eighteenth century dramatist tried to amuse his audience by a reference to "the flesh of the unclean beast", in connection with a Jew. That this, too, became a kind of tradition will become clear from the 'mention of a few striking instances. Shadrach in Jewish Courtship (1787), it will be remembered, is forced by his future father-in-law to eat pork. The Jew in Mordecai s Beard (1790) has his beard greased with a piece of bacon by O Strap. In
1) The Jew, Act IV, sc. 1.
2) The Jew, Act IV, sc. 1. We find here an interesting reference to the well-known Jewish prize-fighter Daniël Mendoza (c. 1764—1836), who became Champion of England in 1792. Boxing seems to have produced a more kindly feeling towards the Jews in those days. The Jewish Encyclopaedia remarks in this connection: "Jews became prominent in the national sport of boxing. When the Englishmen of the lower classes found themselves beaten at their own peculiar sport by the heretofore despised Jew, a certain amount of sympathy was roused; and there can be no doubt that the changed attitude of the populace towards Jews between 1753 and 1829 was due in some measure to the succession of champion Jewish boxers" (Vol. V, p. 170).
8) The Jew, Act II, sc. 2.



Ivanhoe (1819) Scott has recourse to a similar joke. When Isaac of York is ascending the steps of a gallery in the lists of Ashby, Wamba, the jester, opposes to the Jew's beard "a shield of brawn."
As Sheva is apparently intended as an antidote against Shylock 2), a comparison of the two figures will not be out of place. Both are opulent Jews who are reviled and ridiculed, and both have a clownish servant who exposes his master's miserliness. Both are money-lenders who are conspicuous by their unprepossessing appearance. Both have few elements of reality, and are, strictly speaking, only legendary figures, owing to the fact that their authors lost all sense of proportion. The great difference is, however, that the one is the embodiment of the spirit of revenge, the other of the spirit of benevolence. Sheva must no doubt be considered as a compensation for Shylock, but the tragic part of it is that the latter still lives, whereas the former, though he saw the light two centuries later, has been forgotten.
There is no need for lengthy discussion of the sources upon which Cumberland may have drawn for his Sheva, for no direct sources can be mentioned besides the author's other benevolent Jew. But, as a fair amount of attention has already been paid elsewhere to Abrahams and his origin, it only remains to discuss the relation between the latter and Sheva, and to find out what characteristics Cumberland borrowed from other Jewish figures, either in fiction or in real life.
The connection between Abrahams and Sheva is pointed out by the author himself, who says in his Memoirs: "I wrote it (i. e. the character of Abrahams) upon principle, thinking it high time that something should be done for a persecuted race. I seconded my appeal to the charity of mankind by the character of Sheva, which I copied from that of Abraham."3)
Though both abound in benevolence, there is a vast difference between them. As the reader will probably remember, Abrahams is not an altogether impossible figure: he is a rich merchant, who, after having fled from Spain on account of a murder
*) Ivanhoe, ch. VII.
2) Is it a mere coincidence that the two names begin with the same sibilant ?
3) Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, op. cit., p. 304.



he had committed, leads a quiet life in England, has a happy home, frequents the theatre and shows his gratitude for the hospitality which England extends to him, by helping the poor, notwithstanding the fact that he is sometimes publicly abused. His generosity is also overdrawn, but not nearly so much as is the case with Sheva. It will be clear that the latter is by no means an improvement upon Abrahams, it is rather the reverse.
A comparison of Sheva with the preceding benevolent Jews in literature suggests the probability that Cumberland was also influenced by them. From the Polish Jew in Gellert s Das Leben des Swedischen Grafin G.*** (1746), which, as we saw, was translated into English in 1752, he may have borrowed the idea of portraying a grateful Jew. One of Sheva s strongest motives for acting as he did is his boundless gratitude. His life is twice saved by the Ratcliffes, and out of thankfulness he bestows three hundred pounds upon Frederick, gives Eliza, the latter's wife, a dowry of ten thousand pounds, and makes Charles his sole heir. The gratitude of the Polish Jew towards Count G. also proceeds from the fact that the latter had rescued him from certain death. Sheva's loneliness, his sentiment ality, and his forbidding appearance may have been copied from Joshua Manasseh, Smollett's generous Jew. It is significant that Gellert, Smollett and Cumberland all mention the figure ten thousand in connection with a wedding-gift. 1) Sir Walt er Scott was the first to throw out a hint as to the possible influence which Joshua might have exerted on Sheva: "The benevolent Jew of Cumberland had his prototype in the worthy Israelite, whom Smollet has introduced with very great effect into the history of Fathom". 2) Scott does not refer to the possibility (in fact nobody has ever done so) that Gellert's Polish Jew might also have influenced Cumberland. Perhaps Scott had a special reason for not doing so, for it is difficult to believe that he was not familiar with a novel that enjoyed a great
*) Das Leben des Swedischen Grafin G. (Gellerts Werke, ed. Fritz Behrend, II, p. 31); Count Fathom, ch. LXVI, and The Jew, Act II, sc. 2. Landa (op. cit., p. 138) points to the same similarity, but only as far as Smollett and
Cumberland are concerned.
2) Scott, Lives of the Novelists, p. 84.



popularity on the continent, and had been translated into English. The reason may have been the fact that Scott himself, too, had probably been under the influence of the German novel: Isaac of York's life is also saved once, namely by Ivanhoe. The Jew shows his thanks by procuring his rescuer a horse and armour for the coming tournament.1) But the idea of endowing Isaac of York with the quality of gratitude may also have been suggested to Scott by Cumberland's grateful Jew.
Lessing's Nathan der Weise (1779), of which English translations appeared in 1781 and in 1791, may also have exercised some direct influence on Cumberland when he created the characters of Abrahams and Sheva, although these figures are materially different from Nathan, a rich Jew living at Jerusalem. The latter's loneliness — his wife and seven sons have all been murdered —, his philanthropy towards Christians — he has adopted Recha, an orphan —, and his gratitude towards the Templar, who has saved Recha's life, remind us of similar characteristics in Sheva2). But it should be borne in mind that the circumstances in both plays are totally different.
If Cumberland borrowed from preceding benevolent Jews, he also utilized the available elements of the unlovable stage Jew, for, his generosity excepted, Sheva is in every respect the conventional Israelite who regularly appeared on the boards of the London theatres in the second half of the eighteenth century. Cumberland's laudable effort might have met with more success among contemporary Jews, if, instead of lending noble qualities to the traditional stage Jew, he had created an entirely new character. It is to the author's credit that he hardly ever makes Sheva speak the Jewish dialect; it is limited to the words "good", "father" and "brother", which are pronounced "goot", "fader" and "broder". Jabal always employs the King's English.
The question whether Sheva had a living prototype next arises. There were undoubtedly a fair number of philanthropic Jews in Georgian England. The charities of Francis Salvador, one of the directors of the Dutch East India Company, were
') Ivanhoe, ch. VI.
2) Sheva says: "My family is all gone — it is extinct" (The Jew, Act II, sc. 2).



famous. x) The well-known Sampson Gideon, who died in 1762, bequeathed large sums to Christian as well as Jewish institutions.2) Benjamin Mendez da Costa (1704—1764) was also conspicuous by his charity, "which knew neither race nor faith."3) Moses Lamego, who flourished about the year 1757, was also a famous philanthropist.4) Of Solomon da Costa, who was a broker by profession, and who presented the British Museum with about two hundred Hebrew manuscripts, we read that he acquired a considerable fortune, much of which he distributed "in deeds of piety and beneficence to Jews and Christians. 5) Benjamin Goldsmid (1755—l8oS) and his brother Aaron Goldsmid (1756—1810) were so prominent in philanthropic works, that "the daily papers bore an almost daily testimony to
their munificence." 6)
The deeds of these charitable spirits may have influenced Cumberland to some extent, but they can hardly be said to have supplied him with a living prototype, as none of the persons mentioned can be supposed to have borne any other resemblance to the unreal Sheva than their philanthropic activities. The latter must therefore be regarded as a purely fictitious character composed of elements which were all of them present in late eighteenth century literature. Cumberland himself did not add a single constituent part of his own devising.
The Jew was translated into German by one Dengel under the title of Der Jude, ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen, Gratz, 1798. In this version Sheva is named Moses and the two servants are called Jacob and Lea. Though it is on the whole a faithful rendering of the original, the translator made a few alterations, two of which — his endeavours to improve upon the characters of Sheva and Jabal, which he evidently thought too unnatural — should be mentioned here. Dengel softens Sheva's miserliness a little by replacing some of his exaggerated utterances by others more natural, and omits a few un-Jewish references by Jabal in the dialogue between Sheva's servants.
') Hyamson, op. cit.. p. 264.
2) Margoliouth, op. cit., II, p. 115.
8) Hyamson, op. cit., p. 286.
4) The Jewish Encycl., VIII, p. 172.
5) ibid., II, p. 292.
6) Margoliouth, op. cit., II, p. 129.



In 1808, when Cumberland was seventy-six y^ars old, he produced The Jew of Mogadore, a comic opera in three acts. Strictly speaking, this play is beyond the scope of the present treatise, but as its principal character is another Sheva, we cannot very well ignore the author's reiterated effort to depict a sympathetic Israelite. Moreover we cannot fully understand Cumberland's standpoint with regard to the Jews, if we neglect his fourth and last attempt to do justice to this people.
The Jew of Mogadore, the scene of which is laid in Morocco, was staged at Drury Lane on May 3, 1808, and was acted only six times. The theme tells of a wealthy and benevolent Jew, named Nadab, who denies himself almost everything in order to accumulate money, which he spends in purchasing Christian slaves. He treats them very kindly and afterwards gives them their liberty. There is also a knavish Jew, called Palti, who carries off Zelma, the daughter of the governor of Cyprus. This young lady is in love with Selim, the son of the tyrannical emperor of Morocco. Jovanni, the captain of the ship that is to convey Zelma back to Cyprus, falls into the hands of the Arabs, but is ransomed by Nadab. This ultimately leads to the rescue of the governor's daughter. Selim, who is the very opposite of his cruel father, has meanwhile succeeded to the throne. He now marries Zelma and promises to protect the Jews for Nadab's sake.
Like Sheva, Nadab is the central figure of the play and at the same time its only interesting character. He may be called a faithful copy of the hero of The Jew, for he is also a lonely miser who does good by stealth and is openly abused and maltreated. In Act I he complains: "I am peeled, I am pillaged by these villainous Moors. I am eaten up alive by this shark of an Emperor, this Musley Ishmael, who regards the life of a Jew no more than he does that of a jackall. I am old in sorrows, not in years. Losses and poverty have made me grey." His passion for money and his loneliness are very well illustrated by the folio wing passage in the same act. Af ter he has bolted his door in order to see if his treasures are safe, he soliloquizes: "Where is my little *bag? Oh here it is — but hold! hold! hold! 'Tis sunrise, and methinks I should put up my prayers — Well 'tis the same if I put up my monies, for I do always pray for



their increase. So, so, 'tis open — All is safe and right — Well, honest Nauab, amidst all thy sorrows, thou hast one comfort — monies; yes, thy monies are thy comforters; thou hast no son, no daughter; thou art friendless; thou hast no horse, no camel. . . .; but thou hast moneys, Nadab, and that makes my heart so merry."
No further quotations are necessary to show that Sheva and Nadab are of the same mould. The Jew of Mogadore might be called a sequel to The Jew, and like nearly all sequels it is decidedly inferior. From a Jewish point of view, too, serious objections could be raised to Cumberland's comic opera: Nadab, though charitable and benevolent, is a picture of the timehonoured stage miser and Palti is the ordinary stage villain.
It is not impossible that The Jew of Mogadore was written as a reaction against Morton's Zorinski (1795)- This play, of which we shall treat in the following chapter, portrays a Jew who oppresses his master's slaves. Cumberland, fearing lest this play, which achieved a fair popularity, being acted twenty times, might gradually wipe out the impression made by Sheva, may have resolved to compose a piece in which a Jew treats his slaves humanely.
Let us now pay some attention to the names which Cumberland chose for his stage Jews. In this respect, too, he departed from precedent: with the exception of Naphtali, which is not unusual among Jews, the names he chose were uncommon: Sheva, Jabal, Nadab and Palti. Naphtali is mentioned in Gen. XXX, 8, as one of the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob. The name Jabal may have been taken direct from Gen. IV, 20: "And Adah bare Jabal; he was the father of such as dweil in tents and have cattle." Though Sheva is also a biblical name, Cumberland probably borrowed it from the second part of Dryden's satire Absalom and Achitophel (1682), where it refers to Sir Roger L'Estrange, a Tory pamphleteer in the reign of Charles the Second.x) In the Bible Sheva is one of the scribes of King David. 2) It is curious that the name Nadab also occurs in the satire just mentioned (first part, 1681), where it ismeant
The Works of Dryden (Globe edition), p. 178. 2) II Samual XX, 25.



for William, Lord Howard. x) The biblical Nadab is one of the Kings of Israël. 2) Palti is mentioned in Numbers XIII, 9, as one of the twelve spies that have to reconnoitre the land of Canaan.
We have now discussed Cumberland's early attitude towards the Jews and his fourfold attempt to atone for it (Abrahams, Pedrosa, Sheva and Nadab). Ho we ver faulty these efforts may have been, the nobility of his endeavour to make his contemporaries feel sympathy for an oppressed people cannot be denied.
1) The Works of Dryden, p. 107.
2) I Kings XV, 25. Aaron's eldest son is also called Nadab (Exodus VI, 22).



CHAPTER XV
MORTON'S ZORINSKI AND FRANKLIN'S WANDERING JEW.
Thomas Morton (1764?—1838), a playwright who provided the stage with a large number of melodramas, should be mentioned in this essay on account of the fact that he introduced a Jewish character into his Zorinski. This play in three acts, which was performed with success at the Haymarket on June 20, 1795, is founded on an incident in the life of Stanislaus, king of Poland (d. 1798), whose name, as he was still living at the time when the piece was written, together with those of some other historical persons, were altered by the author.
The tale relates how Radzano, a gallant and generous Polish nobleman, has been forcibly dispossessed of his castle by Rodomsko, a nobleman of a tyrannical and unlovable disposition. Radzano has fled to England, and his former slaves — among whom are Whitsky, the miller, Winifred, the latter's wife, and Rachel, their daughter — have now become the property of Rodomsko, who has charged Amalekite Grabowski, an old Jew, with the supervision of them. Whitski frequently shows his contempt for Amalekite, who often makes love to the miller s wife and daughter in a disgusting manner, but who does not dare to turn the father out of the mill for fear of losing Rachel's favour. The Jew does not treat the slaves very kindly: they have to bow low to him at a respectful distance, and he makes them work very hard. In Act I, sc. 2, he says to them, after they have made a deep bow: "Again, again, dat ish goot > now vork you damned Polish dogs.
When Casimir becomes king of Poland, Radzano resolves to return to his country. O'Curragh, an Irishman, accompanies him, and together they try to rally Radzano's old followers. The Jew also gets a summons to assist his former master, but wavers. As he is very keen on money, his self-interest makes him decide in favour of Radzano, the king's minion, who has requested his sovereign to be restored to his inheritance. Casimir
IÓ



endeavours to bring about a reconciliation between Rodomsko and Radzano by a marriage between the latter and Rosolia, the former's daughter. Rodomsko, though he pretends to approve of it, continues to conspire against the king, and goes to Zorinski, a nobleman who had been in great favour with the late sovereign, but having quarrelled with Casimir, now leads a retired life in a salt-mine, where he is looked after by Zarno, Rachel's lover. Rodomsko prevails upon the exile to join in the conspiracy against the king. Meanwhile Radzano's slaves have been assembled by the Irishman to pay homage to their old master and their future mistress. While they are all waiting for the arrival of Radzano and Rosolia, the amorous Jew again tries to make love to the miller's wife, but her husband pulls her away. Rachel tells her father that Zarno will soon be rich, and will buy her from "that old rogue Amalekite". The Jew, who hears this, retorts: "Vill he so, slut — de old rogue will prevent him though — Old rogue — you and your fader shall smart for dat." x) Radzano and his bride now approach with their retinue and Amalekite has to give the roll bearing the names of the slaves to his master, who tears up the paper, and tells them that they are free men henceforward. It may be easily imagined that the cowardly Jew feels very uncomfortable on hearing this: he is afraid that the former slaves will revenge themselves upon him; in which he is not unjustified, for Zarno and Whitski lose no time in showing Amalekite how much they despise him. The miller, jostling him and pushing him aside, says: "Then 1*11 teil you what, if ever I catch that black muzzle within the portico of that mill, 1*11 grind you into sausages, I will, you ugly dog." 2) Nor does the Jew escape his just punishment: a letter is delivered to him announcing that he has been discharged and that O'Curragh has been appointed in his place. The rest of the play deals with Zorinski, who, when he is about to kill the king, is struck with remorse. A reconciliation follows, Radzano and Rosolia marry, and Rodomsko is banished for ever.
It will be evident that Morton regarded the Jews from the
*) Zorinski, Act II, sc. 2. 2) ibid.



traditional standpoint and that he was unaffected by Cumberland's more sympathetic treatment of them; and the fact should be emphasized that he has not a single kind word for the race. He even classes them with the brute creation: the Irishman, describing to Amalekite the pleasant time that is coming when Radzano has been reinstated in his lawful position, says: . every heart will wear the face of joy, and all countenances, men, women, cows, Jews, and sheep, must all be on the broad grin." x)
Morton's Jew is proud, avaricious and licentious. He also speaks that abominable jargon to which we have already made frequent reference; which in the case of this Polish Jew is absurd in the extreme. To make an English Jew, who has only recently settled in England, sin against the common rules of grammar and pronunciation, may not appear incongruous; but to make a Polish Jew who has never seen England, speak broken English, in a play of which the scene is laid at Cracow, is an absurdity which we cannot easily forgive. It proves once again that the practice of giving the stage Jew a language of his own was slavishly copied from preceding dramatists. It was considered one of the indispensable elements of the stage Israelite, like, for instance, the inevitable beard.
The choice of the name Amalekite, too, betrays Morton's deliberate intention to render the Jew in Zorinski contemptible in our eyes. One can hardly imagine any Jew being called by the name of the people that so often harassed the Israelites in olden times. The Amalekites were a tribe living in Southern Palestine at the time when the Jews entered Canaan. In the Old Testament they are frequently mentioned as enemies of the Israelites whose extermination had been ordained by God.
In the character of Morton's Jew we can tracé the influence of O'Keeffe, for Amalekite recalls Shadrach Boaz in The Young Quaker. Both are unscrupulous and degenerate Jews who try to ruin a girl whom they happen to hold in their power. The part was taken by Richard Suett, who, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, successfully played Jabal in The Jew. Actors who personated Jewish characters in those days cannot be said
') Zorinski, Act I, sc. 2-



to have had a pleasant task: one evening, so to say, they had to defend the Jews, the next they had to revile or ridicule them.
From the treatment of the Jew in Zorinski the conclusion would seem to be that the wave of humanitarianism which swept over Europe in the closing years of the eighteenth century did not influence Morton. Yet it cannot be said that this movement did not affect him at all, for the humane treatment of the slaves by Radzano and O'Curragh points to the salutary influence of the spirit of the age of enlightenment. The same sympathetic standpoint is to be found in Ferriar's The Prince of Angola (1788), and in the anonymous play The Negro Slaves (1796), a translation of Kotzebue's Die Negersclaven (1796). *) Nadab in The Jew of Mogadore (1808), as the reader will remember, is also generous in his treatment of his slaves and ultimately rewards them with freedom.
Bef ore discussing another Jew play we should notice a couple of references in two musical entertainments, which were both performed at Sadler's Wells in the year 1796. In England's Glory; or, The Wooden Walls of Britain a sailor, Jack Marlinspike, sings:
Now come home I shall please all the lasses,
Cause why, I'm as rich as a Jew.
In The Spirit of the Grotto; or, An Hour at Weybridge the phrase "then am I a Jew" is mentioned three times in a song sung by a character called Sir Harry. One example will suffice:
Look'ee — cut my coat in two,
Burnt the skirts, as good as new:
If it an't the stylish go, then am I a Jew!
We now pass on to a quite different subject. The last years of the eighteenth century saw the first English dramatization of the legend of the Wandering Jew. Bef ore proceeding to examine this novelty, a few words ought to be devoted to the
*) Cf. Nicoll, op. cit., p. 55.



myth itself and its influence on English literature before 1797, the year in which Andrew Franklin produced The Wandering Jew; or, Love's Masquerade at Drury Lane on May 15.
There are several versions of the legend, but they all agree to this extent, that for some offence or other a Jew will not find rest until the second coming of Christ. The best-known story is that which tells of a Jewish cobbler, named Ahasverus, who, seeing Jesus rest at his door on account of the weight of the cross, drove him away, in consequence of which he was doomed to wander about restlessly till the Day of Judgment. The legend in this form is first given in 1547 by Paul von Eitsen, bishop of Schleswig, who pretends to have met Ahasverus at Hamburg in 1542. x) Later on the Wandering Jew appeared in many other continental towns. Newcastle was the first English city that saw him, it is said in 1790. 2)
The story of Ahasverus must have been known in England before 1625. From this year dates the first English publication that deals with the legend of the everlasting witness of crucifixion. 3) It is called The Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to Englishmen 4). Another version was issued in 1649 in a tract bearing the title of The Wandering Jew, or, A Jewes Lottery5); where the Jew, whose real name is Egremont, and whose profession, as his countrymen think, is fortune-telling, is treated as a serious character. Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) also contains a version of the legend in the ballad entitled The Wandering Jew.6) This poem, of which the date is unknown, does not mention the name of the Jew, but the reference "this cursed shoemaker" in the fifth stanza, shows that the story of Ahasverus is meant.
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775—1818) introduced the figure of the Wandering Jew into his novel Ambrosio, or the Monk
>) See the article on the Wandering Jew in The Encyclopaedia Britannica. ») ibid.
') ibid.
*) 11 was reprinted in J. O. Halliwell's Books of Character, London, 1857 (Jacobs and Wolf, Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, London, 1888, p. 44).
') Cardozo, op. cit., p. 134. This author gives a synopsis of the tract on
PP- 134—137-
•) Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Second Series, Book III, No. 3.



(I795)• x) IR this book the Jew is described as a man with a melancholy countenance and grave manner, who did much good in the town of Ratisbon, where he was then staying. He appears to know everything about Raymond, one of the characters in the novel, whom he releases from his imaginary tormentor.
In Franklin's comedy The Wandering Jew; or, Love's Masquerade the Jew is employed for farcical purposes. The subject may have been suggested to the author by the poem preserved by Bishop Percy, but it is much more probable that the visit of the Wandering Jew at Newcastle in 1790, or the reading of Lewis' successful novel, should be held directly responsible for it. That the story was often told in Franklin's day may be gathered from what Camilla, one of the characters in the comedy under review, says to her cousin Lydia: "The old rich Wandering Jew is arrived in town, of whom you have heard your mother speak so often." 2) He is also mentioned in Robert Bage's novel Man as he is not; or, Hermsprong (1794): "Accident has made him leave off a life like that of The Wandering Jew." 3)
The theme of Franklin's play is not very probable, but all the more amusing. Sir Solomon Swallow resolves to marry his daughter Lydia to the oldest lover who might offer himself. Major Atal, who is enamoured of her, determines to disguise himself as the Wandering Jew, and his friend Captain Marall, who is in love with Camilla, Lydia's cousin and Sir Solomon's ward, is to pass for the secretary of the "rambling Israelite!" For this purpose the Major has the foliowing paragraph inserted in a newspaper4): "The Wandering Jew is certainly at this moment in London. The existence of this wonderful man is well-known throughout Europe; but what is most extraordinary is, that he predicts the hour of his dissolution to be within a twelvemonth, and that the object of his journey to London is, to wed some British beauty, by whom he may leave an heir to his wealth and his longevity. He lives in Old Street, in the City, and is accompanied by an aged servant, within a
') Ambrosio, ch. IV.
') The Wandering Jew, Act I, sc. 4.
') Man as he is not, ch. XXXIII.
*) The Wandering Jew, Act I, sc. 4.



century or two as old as himself." x) The credulous Sir Solomon, after reading the paragraph, immediately resolves to invite the "venerable swain". When the Wandering Jew and Juba, his secretary, enter, Sir Solomon addresses them respectively as Mr. Mathuzalem and Mr. Noah. Both of them of course speak broken English like "He vash very good man," "sho it wash," etc.
It would lead us too far to give a summary of the rest of this two-act comedy, which largely deals with the nonsénse which the Jews teil about their visits to other places. Suffice it to say that the "secretary" utters all kinds if stupidities — among other things he relates that they had been invited to be present at the christening of Remus and Romulus — by which he almost betrays himself and his friend. The two supposed Jews are of course unmasked at last, but none the less there is a happy ending which comes in the least expected manner. The Wandering Jew was played by John Bannister, and R. Palmer, an actor of great merit, who was well-known for his performances as Shylock 2), personated the secretary. The legendary figure once more appeared on the stage in 1835, when an anonymous drama bearing the title of The Wandering Jew was enacted at the Queen's Theatre. 3)
Though it is evident that Franklin did not treat the story seriously, it afterwards received better treatment at the hands of poets, who for the most part considered the Wandering Jew a figure symbolical of the sufferings and wanderings of the Israelites. 4) That this sympathetic view is an outcome of the spirit of the new age needs no demonstration. A couple of years after the performance of Franklin's farce, Wordsworth
*) The Ene. Brit. records no fewer than sixteen "appearances" of the Wandering Jew in Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but adds: "It is difficult to teil in any one of these cases how far the story is an entire fiction and how far some ingenious impostor took advantage of the existence of the myth."
2) W. Clark Russel, op. cit., p. 204.
») For other stage representations of the legend in the nineteenth century see Landa, op. cit., p. 126. This author does not mention the one of 1835-
4) It is perhaps not superfluous to mention here that Shelley deals with the myth four times: Queen Mab (Part VII), The Wandering Jew's Soliloquy, Song from the Wandering Jew, and Fragment from the Wandering Jew. Queen Mab was written in 1813; the dates of the other poems are unknown.



composed his fine Song for the Wandering Jew (1800), which ends with the lines:
Day and night my toils redouble,
Never nearer to the goal;
Night and day, I feel the trouble Of the Wanderer in my soul.
Of Franklin's attitude towards the Jews it is difficult to speak favourably. Like Andrews, O'Keeffe, Holcroft, Morton and several writers of anonymous plays, he does not seem to have been greatly affected by the humane feelings which were entertained for the Jews, and by which some of his contemporaries were influenced. Apart from the fact that he parodies the legend of the Wandering Jew, his standpoint with regard to the Israelites is perfectly evident from a passage in the farce we are examining, in which allusion is made to a licentious Jew. Lady Swallow tells of an auction1) which was visited by two rich Jew Connoisseurs, a Lady of Quality, a marquis, a Dutch ex-burgomaster and others. After the Jews and the marquis had run up some pictures to three hundred and eightynine pounds, Lady Swallow bid four hundred. When the burgomaster was about to mention a still larger sum, one of the Jews became so impertinent to the Lady of Quality, that the marquis instantly tweaked his nose, whereupon the other Jew knocked down the marquis. "While they were employed in knocking each other down," says Lady Swallow, "the Auctioneer, merely to punish them all for their ill manners, knocked down the picture to me."
J) The Wandering Jew, Act II, sc. 3.



CHAPTER XVI
FURTHER SIGNS OF THE HUMANITARIAN MOVEMENT IN DRAMA
A popular and successful play like The Jew could not fail to find imitators. Before discussing this matter and some other signs of humanitarianism in Jew plays, we must, however, make mention of a playlet in which not only Cumberland s munificent stage Jew, but also the whole humanitarian movement in drama is ridiculed. In New Hay at the Old Market, a one-act piece by George Colman The Younger (1762—1836), which was produced at the Haymarket on June 9, 1795. Fustian, an actor, informs his colleague Daggerwood that he has written a tragedy. "The title," he says, "will strike. The fashion of plays, you know, now, is to do away old prejudices, and to rescue certain characters from the illiberal odium with which custom has marked them. Thus we have a generous Israelite, an amiable Cynick, and so on. Now, Sir, I call my play
The Humane Footpad Mine is a freebooter of benevolence,
and plunders with sentiment." There can be no doubt that Colman refers here to Sheva, as the latter was the only benevolent Jew who had hitherto appeared on the English stage. Mr. Israël in The Israelites, though by no means devoid of generous traits, had evidently made too weak an impression to be still remembered after ten years. It is certainly not uninteresting to note that the character of Fustian was acted by Richard Suett, the man who so successfully played a Jewish röle in a play that was meant to produce kindlier feelings
towards the Jews. 2)
The closing years of the eighteenth century brought several generous stage Jews, two of which were imported from abroad. August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue (1761 1819), a well-known German dramatist, whose works bear witness to
1) New Hay at the Old Market, Act I. sc. i.
2) See also p. 243.



the new humanitarian spirit, produced in 1790 Das Kind, der Liebe; oder, Der Strassenrauber aus kindlicher Liebe. Eight years later no less than three renderings of this melodrama appeared in England. Stephen Porter published a literal translation bearing the title of Lovers' Vows; or, The Child of Love, Anne Plumptre issued a version called The Natural Son, and Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald brought out an adaptation entitled Lovers' Vows. Only the last of these was staged (Covent Garden, Oct. 11, 1798). The Jewish part in the original play and its translations is very small, but of considerable significance. Wilhelmina, a poor and sick beggar-woman is sitting on a stone by the side of the road, and asks the passers-by for alms. A compassionate country girl gives her some milk, but two farmers and a hunter come by without bestowing anything upon her. When at last a Jew approaches the woman says to herself: "But here comes a man of another description, a Jew. Could I bring myself to supplicate relief, to him would I stretch out my hand for that charity, of which Christians have but the name." *) The Israelite does not disappoint her. After she has greeted him, he goes up to her, says that she does not look well and hands her some money, remarking: "There! take that, and be satisfied. I have but little for myself." The grateful woman exclaims: "Was I mistaken? Did my heart teil me wrong? This is, indeed, religion and charity; but how widely separated the one from the other!" 2) This pathetic scene strongly reminds us of the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel according to S. Luke. s)
Kotzebue's Der Opfertod (1798), which also portrays a charitable Jew, was translated into English in 1799 under the title of Self-Immolation, and performed at the Haymarket as Family Distress; or, Self-Immolation, on June 15 of the same year. 4)
x) Porter, Lovers' Vows, Act I, sc. 1 (Das Kind der Liebe, Act I, sc. 6).
2) Porter informs us in the preface that his aim has been "not to mutilate or alter a single speech or sentence." It cannot be said, however, that he has always succeeded in this. In the original we read: "Tauschte mich meine Ahnung? Herz und Glaube haben ja nichts mit einander zu schaffen."
») S. Luke, X.
') As early as 1798 a Dutch translation of this play appeared at Amsterdam, entitled Robert Maxwell; of, De Offerdood. Das Kind der Liebe was rendered into Dutch under the title of Het Speelkind (Spectatoriaale Schouwburg, XXI, Amsterdam, 1791).



The scene of this play is laid in London and the principal character is Robert Maxwell, an impoverished merchant, who begs several Christians to help hira for the sake of his blind mother, his sick wife and his little child, but in vain. When he is on the point of being thrown into prison for debt, he is visited by a Jew, one of his creditors, who presents him a draft, but takes pity on him at hearing of the merchant's reduced circumstances. He offers him his purse, but Maxwell is too proud to accept it. The Jew then tears the draft into pieces and leaves, saying that he should not have come if he had known everything. When his benefactor has gone, the merchant soliloquizes: "Jude! Jude! Ja, is gibt noch Menschen — nur nicht unter Christen. Ich Dummkopf! der ich auf der Börse am jeden Israeliten vorüberging, als sei die Menschenliebe dieses Volkes im rothen Meer ersoffen. Ich Dummkopf! der ich die grosze Wahrheit vergasz, dasz unter hundert Fallen neun und neunzigmahl der Verachtete besser ist als der Verachter .... Dieser Jude hat das Fünkchen meines Glaubens an die Menschheit wieder angeblasen." x)
I may be pardoned for giving another quotation from Kotzebue. Der Eremit auf Formentera (1787), one of his earliest dramas, ends with:
Juden, Türken, Christen, Heiden,
Wandeln, ohne sich zu neiden,
Hand in Hand in's Himmelreich!
Drum so ziehet hin in Frieden!
Unser Aller Gott mit euch!
Unser Glaube ist verschieden,
Unsre Herzen sind sich gleich.
Kotzebue was evidently influenced by Gellert and Lessing, who, as we have seen elsewhere, voice similar sentiments in their works. When comparing Kotzebue's stage Jews, who, like Gellert's, have no names, with Sheva and Nadab, we cannot fail to observe that the former are the more natural figures. But there is also a remarkable similarity. Both the German
1) Der Opfertod, Act I, sc. 11. I quote from the German play, as the English translation was not accessible.



and the English dramatist apply the same method in their sentimental vindication of the Children of Israël: they make them paragons of virtue and contrast them with bad Christians. It is therefore not improbable that Kotzebue and Cumberland influenced each other. The latter may have been affected by Das Kind der Liebe (1790), while the former may have been prompted by The Jew to write another play with a charitable Israelite, for it is remarkable that Kotzebue introduced the character of a generous Jewish money-lender into Der Opfertod (1798).
Thomas John Dibdin (1771—1841), an illegitimate son of Charles Dibdin, and, like his father, a very prolific writer (he is said to have composed about two hundred plays and two thousand songs), continued the work of Cumberland. On Nov. 23, 1798 his two-act farce The Jew and the Doctor was played at Covent Garden with great success. We are told by Dibdin himself that it was written at the request of Mr. Dowton of Drury Lane, who wished to have a play with a Jewish character quite as benevolent but more farcical than Cumberland's Sheva. It will be clear from this that the second generous stage Jew was not created with such noble intentions as his predecessor. As he had proved a popular and pecuniary success, it was not long before other playwrights endeavoured to make capital out of this novelty. Oulton informs us that The Jew and the Doctor was sent to Cumberland for any alteration he might think fit, as there was a benevolent Jew in it. 1)
The subject is a hackneyed one: a birth-mystery. Abednego, a Jewish money-lender, finds a little child in an Amsterdam hotel during his stay in Holland. On the girl a jewel is found and a paper stating that she had been christened Emily. Returning to London, he takes the foundling with him and brings her up as a Christian. "As your father and mother made you a Christian," he tells her when she is grown up, "for vat I shou'd make you a Jew, my tear? The panker, on whom I draw for payment, is Provitence; he placed you in ma hands
1) W. C. Oulton, History 0/ the Theatres, London. 1818, II, p. 43 (cf. also Williams, op. cit., p. 256).



as a pledge of his favour, and the security is unexceptionable."x) The girl falls in love with one Charles Bromley, whose father, not wanting his son to keep company with Emily, calls on Abednego. "A fine piece of business," he says, "that my son's disobedience should send me dancing af ter a Jew." 2) Abednego, who pretends not to understand Mr. Bromley, answers: "Sir, your servant — Any ting in my vay, Sir — any pills to be discounted — any ting vat I can serve you in?" When the enraged father refuses to sit down and the Jew realizes that good words are lost on him, he gives his visitor a piece of his mind:
Abednego. If you come to apuse Miss Emily, I teil you, you have got de wrong sow in your ear — she is a goot girl, and de delight of ma heart.
Bromley. Money-lenders with hearts! 3) Come, I like that. Abednego. I pelieve if they had hearts as the vorld goes, they vou'd soon preak. I teil you, Sir, ma poor child is a match for any pody.
Bromley. She! Come, I like that — why, you yourself was once no more than a little pedling boy, then a ragman and then a bailiff's follower.
The Jew now endeavours to satisfy the angry father by offering to purchase an estate for his son Charles. This causes a torrent of invectives on the part of Mr. Bromley, who cannot believe that Abednego is in earnest. "You dealer in discount," he bawls, "you dabbler in dirty water — you old — old Jew you!" The other replies in an indignant tone: "Any ting vat you can call ma? Can you trow noting in my face but my religion? I wish wid all ma heart I cou'd return the compliment." But like a second Sheva he returns good for evil: he promises to give Emily a dowry of five thousand pounds. "I take it in my hand to shew you, that if Christians profess forgiveness of
M The Jew and the Doctor, Act I, sc. i.
*) ibid.
3) Compare O'Strap's exclamation ia Mordechai's Beard (1790): "Is it for a Jew Cloaths Man to have a soul?"



injuries, Jews can sometimes practise it," he says.1) Mr. Bromley does not object to the marriage any longer now. But new difficulties arise. Emily is arrested on a charge of having stolen a jewel: the diamond which Abednego had found on her at Amsterdam, and which he had lately given to her. The Jew endeavours to obtain her release, but his vehement language causes him to be locked up, too. Then follows an extremely amusing scene, in which Mrs. Changeable, Bromley's daughter, who happens to be in the same cell, makes love to Abednego. The latter proves not to be susceptible to the woman's amorous advances, and is at last rescued by Mr. Bromley. Meanwhile Emily, who has also been set free, is pursued by Mr. Changeable. Seeing her foster-father, she runs up to him and implores his protection. "Never mind, ma dear," he replies. "I shall fight for you all de world, so I was Daniël Mendoza." To the young man he says: "Go away mit you, you scoundrel," which seems to have a sobering effect on him, for he apologizes to Abednego, whom he addresses as Mordecai. It proves that Mr. Changeable has been drunk. In the mean time a Dr. Specific enters upon the scene. He, it appears, is Emily's father; and when he asks the Jew how he can show his gratitude, Abednego answers: "If ever you see a helpless creature vat needs your assistance, give it for ma sake. And if the object should even not be a Christian, remember that humanity knows no difference of opinion, and that you can never make your own religion look so well as when you shew mercy to the religion of others." 2)
Abednego has a friend called Shadrach — "ma friend vat lives o'top of Duke's Place" — who does not, however, appear in the play. It is interesting to note that Dibdin chose for his first stage Jew a name that had not been used before and which, like that of Shadrach, had never been in vogue with the Jews. Both occur in the well-known story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Book of Daniël. 3) Apart from the Bible, names like these were probably also popularized by religious drama.
*) This sentiment reminds us of a similar one in The Israelites, Act II, sc. 3: "I will shew you there are some Jews who practise what many Christians only profess."
2) The Jew and the Doctor, Act II, sc. 2.
s) Daniël III.



As early as the middle of the twelfth century Hilarius composed a scriptural play called The History of Daniël. *) In the eighteenth century the story was twice dramatized. Mrs. Hannah Moore wrote a sacred drama entitled Daniël (1782), and an anonymous piece Daniël in the Lion's Den was performed at Doncaster in 1793. 2)
Though Abednego is more farcical on account of one or two comic situations of which he is the unwilling hero, and because of the peculiar lingo he jabbers, he is a much more natural figure than Sheva. He lacks the latter's sentimentality and in his character the contrast between miserliness and generosity is not so marked as in Cumberland's Jew. Sheva simply leads a dual existence: his life is such that the world believes him to be a sordid miser, whereas the initiated know him as a man of boundless munificence. He is the very reverse of the ordinary type of man that lives a doublé life. There is no such duality in Abednego's character. He hides his love for Emily as little as his passion for money; and the latter quality becomes almost excusable when we consider that the world had always used him badly, so that only one thing was left for him "to mind de main chance", as he styles it. Do we also blame George Eliot for making Silas Marner a miser? Certainly not, because we know the weaver of Raveloe to be the victim of circumstances. This also applies to Abednego. But, just as in George Eliot's novel, when a poor, motherless child crosses his path, he at last finds an object upon which to lavish his love.
Dibdin made a few other attempts to draw a favourable picture of the Jew. His School for Prejudice (Covent Garden, Jan. 3, 1801), an expanded form of the same author's Liberal Opinions (Govent Garden, May 12, 1800), and later on altered into The Lawyer, The Jew and the Yorkshireman (Sadler's Wells, Aug. 22, 1825), also contains a benevolent Jew, as is the case with The Magpie; or, The Maid of Palaiseau (Drury Lane, Sept. 12, 1815). Moreover Thomas Dibdin is the author of Ivanhoe; or, The Jew's daughter, an adaptation of Scott's novel;
') A. W. Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature, London, 1899, I, p. 39 (new and revised edition).
2) See the list of sacred dramas on p. 109.



it was acted in Surrey on Jan. 20, 1820. Mention has already been made of his dramatization of Humphry Clinker, which has a Jewish character called Mordecai.
In The School for Prejudice there are two plots: the intrigues of the Liberal family and the story of an old coat. Only the last part concerns us here. Mrs. Howard, a poor widow, sells some old things left her by her uncle and apparently of little value, to Ephraim, a Jew. She leaves it to him to mention the amount due to her, because she knows that he has the reputation of being honest. The Israelite answers: "You forget I am a Jew. If you make it vorth ma vile, I shall buy dem; but if the pargain isn't made before your face, I cou'dn't give ma vord dat I shou'dn't have de best share of it." x) When he learns that Mrs. Howard tries to hide her poverty from her daughter Marian, who, in her turn, deceives her mother by affecting to be cheerful, he remarks: "And so de moder and de daughter do all dey can to sheat von anoder. I didn't tink nobody but a Jew could be guilty of such a ting." Ephraim offers the widow a banknote, which she accepts reluctantly, because she thinks it too much. After the Jew has gone, Rachel, an old servant, observes to her mistress: "My poor dear husband used to say they were fit for nothing, but to lend money, wear long beards, and buy bad shillings." Mrs. Howard defends the Jews by saying: "You should recollect that if the Christians did not furnish by their extravagance the ground of Jewish usury, the sons of Israël would be more respected." This alternate praise and censure is found throughout the play. Thus in Act II, sc. 1, an inn-keeper says to Ephraim: "The countryfolks say you are a good, civil, kind-hearted man, and have been known to give money to the poor. You could not learn that among your own people. I don't mean to affront you; but you know there's a great many rogues among them, nobody denies that." The answer which Ephraim gives proves that Dibdin is a true disciple of Gellert, Lessing, Kotzebue, Smollett and Cumberland: "If I have any goodness apout me, I didn t learn it out of de Jews, noder out of de Christians it was part of the shtock in trade given me from a better world."
*) The School for Prejudice, Act I, sc. 1.
2) ibid., Act III, sc. 1.



John Grouse, an honest Yorkshireman, also praises Ephraim in a somewhat ambiguous way: "I should like the man vary well, but he's a Jew; and one don't care to have o'er much to do wi such folk."
To return to the plot of the play, Ephraim discovers a number of banknotes in the lining of the old drab-coloured coat which he has bought from Mrs. Howard. The latter's adviser, Mr. Friendly, informs the lady that in the left-hand pocket of the coat there was a reward for her past sufferings. When he calls for the object in question, Frank Liberal, who had gone to the Jew to borrow one thousand guineas from him, and who had hidden behind a curtain when another visitor was announced, disappears with the coat. After much difficulty Friendly recovers it, but the treasure is gone. Meanwhile Ephraim goes to the widow and restores the money. At the risk of being misjudged he has kept the banknotes until he has found the lawful owner. To Friendly, who upbraids him with not having returned the money earlier, he says: "Because I don't know weder a lawyer is more honest as a Jew; and because this lady is de person vat has the most right to receive dem."*) Old Liberal, when hearing that Ephraim has restored the treasure, cannot help exclaiming: "What, a Jew refuse to keep ten thousand pounds, when he had it in his power?" Ephraim's answer is exactly as we should have expected: "To an honest man ten thousand pounds is no more recompense for de loss of a good conscience than if it was a twopenny banknote." Small wonder that Mrs. Howard calls him "honest Ephraim". There are however also persons in the play who hold different views, but they are unpleasant characters. The low-bred Squire Chace calls the Israelite "a reptile" and "an old badger", and the rapacious Friendly styles him "a Jew of most vile aspect." Dibdin might indeed have chosen a less felicitous title for his second Jew play.
John Fawcett (1769—1837), whom Boaden called "a great, original, masterly comedian, always natural, and extremely po werf ul," 2) successfully played the characters of Abednego and Ephraim.
1) The School for Prejudice, Act V, sc. 2.
*) W. Clark Russell, op. cit., p. 291.
17



Dibdin's other Jew plays can be mentioned here only briefly. Family Quarrels (Covent Garden, Dec. 18, 1802) to which no allusion has been made hitherto, deserves some consideration on account of the fact that a number of Jews protested against one of the characters in this play, who disguised himself as a Jew to enable a young lady to escape. When the opera appeared in print the author defended himself in the preface by assuring the public that the part taken exception to was "no more intended to convey disrespect than were the parts of Ephraim in The School for Prejudice, or Abednego in The Jew and the Doctor, which have hitherto been honoured with the most general approbation."
In The Magpie; or, The Maid of Palaiseau (1815), an adaptation of Caignez' La pie voleuse; ou, La Servante de Palaiseau, a Jew pedlar, called Isaac, does his level best to prove the innocence of a girl who is charged with having stolen a silver spoon.
Thomas Dibdin's brother, Charles Dibdin the Younger (1768—1833), another natural son of Charles Dibdin the Elder, and like his father, the author of a great number of songs, also composed a piece that was evidently meant to rouse sympathy for the Jews. It is a monologue called The Jew Pedlar (1810?), and was sung by A. Slader at Sadler's Wells. The hawker sings the praises of his wares, and complains that "a pedling Jew gets often jeered." There is again a curious reference to the well-known pugilist: "Vat do you do vid your fish-hooks in my box? If you don't take 'em out again, I shall give you a Mendoza, and lay you all along as flat if you vas a flounder. You tink because vat I'm a Jew you may use me like a Turk." The queer little production ends with: "But take this lesson from a Jew — To mend von hole in your own coat is better as picking twenty in your neighbour's, my dear."
Charles Dibdin is also the author of The Jew of Wilna; or, Bravery and Ingratitude (Surrey, Aug. 29, 1825). It is a musical drama and has a Jewish figure named Laban.
') Landa (op. cit., p. 152) wrongly asserts that this play is an anonymous one. Cf. Nicoll, A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama, Cambridge. 1930, vol. II, p. 286.



It is perhaps not superfluous to remark that in all the cases mentioned in this chapter we are introduced to the traditional stage Jew, who is, however, endowed with some noble qualities. The Dibdins faithfully followed in Cumberland's footsteps. The Jew's appearance, his language and his profession are the same as with Cumberland's predecessors, only his heart has undergone an important change: from being rapacious, unfeeling, cowardly and dissolute, the stage Jew has become genereus, compassionate, brave and virtuous. As the age of sentimental humanitarianism passed away ere long, this state of things was of course not destined to endure. The nineteenth century drama produced a great number of plays with Jewish characters, both lovable and unlovable. But it is an irrefutable fact that the last years of the eighteenth century saw the first serious attempts to put an end to the ridiculing and reviling of the Jews on the stage. These praiseworthy efforts, which, as an outcome of the so-called Aufklarung, make the last decades of that century an interesting and perhaps not altogether unimportant period in English dramatic history, could not fail to influence nineteenth century novelists and playwrights.
The pity is that those dramatists who saw the Jews with other eyes, did not shake off the shackles of convention, nor paint entirely new figures. We have, however, little cause to blame them; far greater authors than the farce-writers enumerated in the foregoing pages, were unable to break away from tradition. Scott's Isaac of York and Reade's Isaac Levi1), though lifelike figures and not devoid of good characteristics, have something unreal about them, and this is due to the timehonoured literary conception of the Jew.
Before parting with the eighteenth century stage Jew, we ought to devote some attention to the question whether the frequent occurrence of Jewish characters in the literature of the period we have been discussing, must be laid to the account of Marlowe's Barabbas and Shakespeare's Shylock, the two outstanding Jewish figures in Elizabethan drama. The former
l) This character occurs in Charles Reade's novel It is Never Too Late to Mend (1856), which is based on his play called Gold (Drury Lane, Jan. 10, 1853).



may perhaps be left out of consideration, as The Jew of Malta (produced about 1588) has hardly ever been represented on the stage since its own day. x) Barabbas was too grotesque and too loathsome a character to enjoy a long life.
The question whether Shylock is the spiritual father of all the successive stage Jews has not of ten been touched upon before, perhaps for the simple reason that it has always been taken for granted. Landa expresses his firm belief in the affinity when he says: "Shylock is the Wandering Jew. His form may be shadowy at times, but it varies little. Never is he permitted to rest: death and burial are denied him. Impelled ever onward through the years, the butt of mankind where he is not pitilessly execrated, he spreads the plague of prejudice in all lands and climes .... He [i. e. the Jew of the stage] is always Shylock, watered down to requirements — a money-lender nine times out of ten, insisting upon 'his pound of flesh', scheming and intriguing to get the Christian within his clutches." 2)
It may, however, be doubted if so much influence should be ascribed to The Merchant of Venice, and if another circumstance must not be taken into consideration as well when we wish to account for the enormous attention paid to the Jews in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It seems that the repeal of the Jew Bill in 1754 should largely be held responsible for it. In order to illustrate this we shall first enumerate the recognized Jew plays composed between the years 1596 — the probable date of the production of The Merchant of Venice — and 1754. We shall then supply a list of dramas with Jewish characters written and staged between the latter date and the beginning of the nineteenth century.
1607. Day, Rowley and Wilkins, Travailes of the brothers Sherley.
1610. Daborne, A Christian turned Turk.
1622. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Custom of the Country.
1627. Goffe, The Raging Turk.
1653. Decker, The Jew of Venice.
1694. Dryden, Love Triumphant.
*) Landa (op. cit., p. 68) records only two revivals of The Jew of Malta (1818 and 1922).
*) ibid.. pp. 9 and 12.



1701. Granville, The Jew of Venice.
1733. Cibber, The Harlot's Progress.
1735. Anon., The Jew Decoyed.
1742. Fielding, Miss Lucy in Town.
1749. Anon., The Jerusalem Infirmary. *)
1759. Macklin, Love a la Mode.
1768. Foote, The Devil upon Two Sticks.
1772. Cumberland, The Fashionable Lover.
1772. Foote, The Nabob.
1774. Foote, The Cozeners.
1775. Waldron, The Contrast; or, The Jew and the Married Courtesan.
1775. Sheridan, The Duenna.
I777- Garrick, Lethe.
1777. Sheridan, The School for Scandal.
1780. Anon., Moses and Shadrac.
1781. Andrews, Dissipation.
1783. O'Keeffe, The Young Quaker.
1785. Anon., The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob.
1785. Anon., The Fair Refugee; or, The Rival Jews.
1787. Anon., A Specimen of Jewish Courtship.
1788. Anon., The Diamond Ring; or, The Jew Outwitted.
1789. O'Keeffe, The Little Hunchback.
1790. Anon., Mordecai's Beard.
1794. Cumberland, The Jew.
1795. Cross (?), The Jew and the Gentile.
1795. Morton, Zorinski.
1J97- Franklin, The Wandering Jew; or, Love's Masquerade.
1798. Dibdin, The Jew and the Doctor.
1801. Dibdin, The School for Prejudice. 2)
A comparison of the two surveys shows us that in a period of about one hundred and sixty years following the production of The Merchant of Venice, only eleven Jew plays were written,
') Only The Jei^ Decoyed, and The Jerusalem Infirmary were never performed. s) Lethe is the only play in this list that was not publicly performed. It should also be remarked that translations from Lessing and Kotzebue have not been mentioned in the survey.



whereas during the first forty-seven years after the repeal of the Naturalization Bill the number of such plays was no less than twenty-four. It also strikes us that the first half of the eighteenth century produced but five Jew plays, while the second half can boast twenty-three. When drawing conclusions from these figures, we must of course make allowance for the fact that during the latter half of the century a greater number of plays was written than during the first. But we may safely say that, comparatively speaking, the stage Jew absorbed a great deal more attention than in the preceding five decades. It is remarkable that the period which is so fruitful of Jew plays begins a couple of years after the repeal of the Naturalization Bill, which had so deplorable an effect on the Jewish community in London, and which again focused the attention on this despised people and made them a favourite butt of ridicule.
As to The Merchant of Venice, this play was probably never acted publicly between 1600 and 17001), and the following century saw only the revivals of Granville (1701) and of Macklin (1741). There is of course no denying the fact that the repeated Shylock performances influenced popular opinion to such a degree that an atmosphere was created favourable to the reception of a ludicrous or villainous stage Jew; they may even have affected the chances of the bill just referred to. But it cannot be denied either that those persons who, prompted by hatred, fanaticism or prejudice, brought about the repeal of this bill, promoted the creation of the figure under consideration. If the attempt at emancipation of the Jews had been successful, if they had no longer been denied political rights, nor excluded from public offices, if in short, they had no longer been regarded as inferior beings, it is highly probable that the late eighteenth century playwrights would not have shown such a strong predilection for assigning the most ignoble parts of their dramas to Jews. Hence, in accounting for the frequent occurrence of unpleasant Jewish characters in the plays produced during the last four decades of the period under review,
l) S. A. Small, Shakespearean Character Interpretation: The Merchant of Venice (Hesperia, Schriften zur Englischen Philologie, herausgegeben von J. W. Bright, Göttingen, Heft 10, 1927, P- 7).



the influence of Shylock ought not to be overstressed, nor the effects of the failure of the attempt at Jewish emancipation underrated. In any case the sudden resuscitation of the contemptible stage Jew by Macklin in his Love a la Mode (1759)' after having been apparently dead for seventeen years Fielding's Zorababel dates from 1742 — must chiefly be ascribed to the hostile atmosphere which surrounded the Jewish Naturalization Bill. x)
i) An attempt to account for the early eighteenth century stage Jew has been made in the section dealing with Hogarth's A Harlofs Progress.



CONCLUSION
In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to illustrate the peculiar fascination which a Jewish figure appeared to have for a great number of eighteenth century authors. The reader has been shown a whole gallery of Jewish portraits, for the greater part not representing persons as seen in daily life, but grotesque beings which are perhaps best defined by the word caricature. Nowhere have we observed an attempt, however feeble, to depict the Jewish psyche, or to portray some aspects of Jewish life. We have seen that not only lesser writers, but also men like Dryden, Defoe, Pope, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Sheridan and Garrick could not resist the temptation to make an uncongenial Israelite one of the characters of their novels and dramas, or to allude to him in an unfriendly way. We have found the Jew in all forms of literature: in comedies, farces, tragi-comedies, melodramas, satires, ballad operas, entertainments, interludes, afterpieces, pantomimes, songs, novels and essays. Only in pure tragedy he is conspicuous by his absence, evidently because in this species of drama there was no place for a buffoon.
There is much variety in the characters which we have investigated. As far as the unlovable figures are concerned, we might speak of the stupid Jew, the avaricious Jew, the cowardly Jew, the villainous Jew, the foppish Jew, the boastful Jew, the gullible Jew, the amorous Jew and the licentious Jew. In most cases the author combines several of these qualities, but generally one of them predominates. The object invariably aimed at is to present to the audience or to the reader a character that excites laughter or contempt. In order to render the Jew ludicrous the eighteenth century dramatist gives him a forbidding appearance, small stature, sometimes a ridiculous name, and makes him say all sorts of stupidities, preferably in broken English, in the so-called Jewish dialect. The author of The Jew Decoyed probably introduced this innovation; it was imitated by Cumberland, Foote, O'Keeffe, Andrews, Morton, Franklin, Dibdin, and several anonymous playwrights. Fielding was the first to invent comic names for the stage Jew.
Jewesses do not seem to have appealed very much to the



eighteenth century novelist and dramatist, for they are few and far between in the literature of the period. When we do find them they are always unpleasant figures: in most cases they deceive their fathers, generally elope with a non-Jewish lover, and of ten ridicule their own religion.
We should on no account forget to emphasize the fact that the attention paid to the Jews in eighteenth century essays, novels and dramas is in no respect due to the author s desire to lash the vices and follies of the age. Of only one of the many writings examined in this treatise can it be said that the composer had living prototypes: The Jerusalem Injirmary, whose anonymous author, after hearing of some irregularities in a private hospital, which may take place in any institution no matter to what persuasion or association it belongs, mercilessly pilloried the Infirmary, only because it had been founded by Jews. But that play was never acted, nor does it appear to have had any influence, as not a single reference to it is found in contemporary literature. From the very outset it seems to have been ignored by all right-minded people. But for the engraving it would have been forgotten for ever. The print has brought to light some interesting particulars of the history of the Jews in England, namely the plot to shoot all the subscribers to Beth Holim and to set their houses on fire, and the consequent resolution of the committee to hire a guard particulars with which the historian will have to reckon henceforward, for hitherto he has recorded the anti-Jewish riots in London of the year 1732 as the last plot against the Jews in England.
We can only regard the frequent occurrence of Jewish figures in eighteenth century literature as a matter of tradition and convention. When one novelist or dramatist had achieved success with a Jewish character, his contemporary or successor likewise tried his Hand at it. In this connection mention should be made of the fact that the middle classes had begun to frequent the theatre at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 2) As this section of society, which the playwright also had to cater for now, was, it will be remembered, still steeped in
*) See p. 114. The Gordon Riots of 1780 also subjected the Jews to great annoyance, but we can hardly speak of a "plot in this case.
2) Nicoll, A History ol Early Eighteenth Century Drama, p. 25-



prejudice against the Jews, it hailed the appearance of the ridiculous and despicable stage Israelite with applause. This enthusiastic reception caused a number of imitations, most of which are as many proofs of the degeneracy of the eighteenth century drama.
That the Jew in literature is merely a conventional figure is corroborated by the fact that whenever an anthor was censured for ha ving depicted an unlovable Israelite, he introduced a congenial one into some other work. He had only trodden in the footsteps of his predecessors — perhaps more or less unconsciously — and when he was rebuked for having given offence to fellow-citizens, the scales seemed to fall from his eyes. Another proof that the Jew in fiction and drama was kept alive by tradition is the circumstance that the same names are so often repeated. The average novelist or playwright was rather ignorant of things Jewish and mostly chose current names, as for instance Moses, Isaac, Aaron, Solomon. Names like Mordecai and Shadrach also seem to have appealed very much to him; he remembered them from popular parts of the Bible (the Book of Esther and the Book of Daniël), or from religious drama, or he borrowed them from his predecessors. As the eighteenth century authors probably had little experience of living Jews, save perhaps of an occasional Jewish money-lender, they did not take the names from daily life.
As to uncomplimentary references to Jews, we have seen that a sentence in The Book of Common Prayer, "Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Hereticks," which was written at a time when the feelings towards the Israelites were anything but tolerant, was also an occasion for much abuse during the period under review. As a matter of fact, a great number of eighteenth century authors displayed a marked tendency to hurl scurrilous abuse at the Jews. This has been so amply illustrated in the course of this essay that it is unnecessary to recapitulate it.
In fiction the Jew was treated as illiberally as in drama. Limiting ourselves to a few outstanding cases we remind the reader of Pope's scathing satire on Edmund Curll, Defoe's odious Israelite in Roxana, the licentious Jews in Smollett's early novels, Richardson's Jewish libertine in Sir Charles



Grandison, and Fanny Burney's money-lenders in Cecilia. Smollett, influenced by The History of the Swedish Countess of Guildenstern, a translation of Gellert's epistolary romance, was the first English novelist who made amends for the literary exploitation of the Israelites by creating a lovable Jew. From the fact that he did this in the year which saw the introduction of the Naturalization Bill, and from some other circumstances we could not but conclude that it was the author's aim to promote the Jewish cause. The second attempt in fiction to do justice to the Jews was made by Raspe in his preface to Nathan the Wise. Cumberland, who was evidently affected by the writings of Gellert, Smollett, Lessing and Raspe, subsequently supported the efforts just mentioned, in The Observer, in which he painted a couple of benevolent Jews.
The picture which the average eighteenth century author drew of the Israelites proves to have made an almost indelible impression. Later novelists like Maria Edgeworth, Scott, Dickens and Reade, to confine ourselves to great authors, could not disengage themselves from the example of their predecessors. The Absentee, Ivanhoe, Oliver Twist, and It's Never Too Late to Mend, bear eloquent testimony to the strong influence which the eighteenth century Jew plays and novels exercised on the authors just mentioned. This influence has perhaps never been fully realized. All the elements of which the character of Isaac of York is composed, and some incidents connected with him, are to be found in eighteenth century literature, as we had occasion to point out in several places of the present treatise. To give another example, Dickens probably borrowed some of the raw material for Fagin and his surroundings from Fielding s An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers.
It seems unfair to hold Shakespeare, whose The Merchant of Venice saw two revivals during the eighteenth century, solely responsible for the attention paid to the Jews in this period. Af ter Dryden had made an unsuccessful attempt to transform the villainous stage Israelite of Elizabethan times into a ludicrous character, composed of elements borrowed from Molière, Beaumont and Fletcher, Hogarth, the greatest of English pictorial satirists, probably influenced by The Beggar's Opera and The Provoked Husband, popularized the ridiculous



figure of the stupid Jew who is deceived by his mistress, a character which found eager imitators in Theophilus Cibber, Fielding, Smollett, and some anonymous writers, one of whom had even the impudence to name his hero Manasseh ben Israël. Then there is a lull in the composition of Jew plays for seventeen years, during which time Macklin's Shylock absorbs much attention. The hostile atmosphere round the Naturalization Bill, which riveted the attention of political controversialists, novelists, essayists and dramatists on the Jews again, caused another output of contemptible stage Israelites. Macklin, who had already evinced his hatred of the Jews in the fierce manner in which he had interpreted the character of Shylock, led the way. His success with Love a la Mode, which was so great that even the King sent for the manuscript — the same King who had ratified the Jew Bill a few years earlier — actuated others to follow in his footsteps. For the next thirtyfive years the despicable Jew without any redeeming virtue is a stock character on the English stage. During this period even eminent men like Sheridan and Garrick stooped to join in the general cry. The former, who was influenced among others by Dryden, Granville and Foote, scored a great success, the latter failed signally.
A reaction did not take place until the last decades of the eighteenth century, when a wave of humanitarianism, coming from the continent, especially from Germany, where Kotzebue was the chief exponent of this new spirit in drama, also passed over England. It is then that we meet the congenial stage Israelite for the first time. Here, too, different types are to be distinguished: the grateful Jew, the benevolent Jew and the philanthropic Jew. The mistake made by the Aufklarung dramatists was that they did not depict entirely new figures, but endowed the traditional stage Jew with noble qualities. Moreover they feil from one extreme into the other.
The anonymous drama The Israelites; or, The Pampered Nabob, which might be called a landmark in the history of the English stage Israelite, portrays a Jew named Mr. Israël, who has several good qualities, and is not held up to derision. He also speaks the King's English. But the lesson which the author of this playlet undoubtedly wanted to teach was ignored. It



is a pity that we do not know the name of this enlightened spirit. The piece was hitherto ascribed to Smollett on the evidence of a critic who had presumably never read it, nor seen it acted. Being so fortunate as to tracé the manuscript of this drama and of some other unprinted Jew plays, we were confronted by the problem of the authorship. The result of our investigation was, however, only negative: the theory that Smollett was the author seems untenable for reasons explained elsewhere. It was probably written in or about 1785 by a playwright who was influenced by the novelist just mentioned.
Symptoms of the new spirit of the time are also perceptible in Mordecai's Beard, an interlude which was perhaps composed by the author of Jewish Education and Jewish Courtship. These three pieces have never been published. The two efforts to defend the Jews — The Israelites and Mordecai's Beard — had not much effect, evidently because the plays did not appeal to the audience, and because they were never printed. It was reserved for Richard Cumberland to make the first successful attempt in English drama to teach the Gentile of his days that the word "neighbour" in the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" also included the Jew.



APPENDIX
THE ISRAELITES; OR, THE PAMPERED NABOB1)
ACT I
SCENE I — A PARLOUR AT WIDOW WRINKLE'S Enter Juggle and Flam.
Jugg. All's fair and square, Mrs. Tiddy; aye, the oftner we settle, our partnership will hold the faster. There is one short way to make it last for life, Tiddy.
Flam. There are other bonds to be tied, before we come together for life. I must dispose of my mistress, the gay Widow Wrinkle, and her daughter Miss Naivette. ha, ha, ha.
Jugg. What cards you have to play!
Flam. You have reason to be thankful. Butler, marketman, and valet de chambre to Sir Simon Lollop, a pampered Nabob, who would rather forfeit half his estate than be at the trouble to calculate the expense of one day: a man who slumbers through life, and thinks it the greatest hardship in the world to be obliged to keep his eyes open. I fancy my mistress, his twin-sister must have suckled away all his brains and spirit before she came into the world!
Jugg. I know not who sucked him then, but he has been so well sucked since, his head is now as dry as a squeezed pumpkin, the eastern climate has dried it into a fuzz-ball; then he expects to be pampered with all the delicacies of the season, and I must get the money as I can. After all my profits are so trifling, I don't make twelvepence in the pound, and that I share with you.
Flam. But there are the profits of the wardrobe and marketing.
Have you not set up your nephew at the Seven Dials and furnished his shop with your master's clothes ? And is not your niece's cook-shop supplied with meat from his butcher and poulterer?
*) This play is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. I have purged the text of its many errors and replaced words like: parlor, shew, thro', pamper'd, etc. by parlour, show, through and pampered.



Jugg. What do you think of your fellow-feeling with the different artists who contribute to adorn the person of a fine lady? But all these are nothing to the presents you receive from the admirers of Miss Naivette.
Flam. Her admirers do not pay for washing apr. gauze ruffles. That cursed clause in her father's will restricting her to the English nation in the choice of a husband is many hundred pounds out of my pocket; but for that wicked clause she might have had the Irish and Scotch peerage at her command.
Jugg. What say you to decayed gamesters from the turf, younger brothers and half-pay officers. Thirty thousand pounds is a good bait; you'11 not make less than five thousand by the marriage.
Flam. But this golden fruit is guarded by two dragons; her mother on one side, and her guardian Old Israël a Jew on the other. The good widow wants to engross all the admirers to herself, and hates her daughter as an impertinent rival.
Jugg. She'11 part with her the more easily.
Flam. Then Mr. Israël having had to do all his life with rogues is suspicious of everything, and is as hot and as hasty as his brother guardian, your master, is old and slothful. He looks upon me with an evil eye, and only wants a pretence to turn me out of doors.
Jugg. In so doing he would do no more by you than he has done already by his own son, who has turned Christian.
Flam. What, young Enoch become wicked?
Jugg. He will not win the prize. Mr. Heartly, if I an't mistaken, has got into the good graces of the young lady.
Flam. They are not the suitors for me: the one trusting to his merit will give nothing; and the other whom nobody will trust has nothing to give. [Bell rings.
Jugg. Sir Simon's bell rings, it is now past eleven, and he wants to crawl out of his nest. Adieu. [Exit Jugg.
Enter Miss Naivette.
Naiv. Look here Tiddy, I've finished my ruffle.
Flam. One would imagine you intended to be a milliner's journeywoman; for shame, Miss, take example from your Mama, who looks upon these things as the occupations of the vulgar! A young lady of your fortune should pass one half the day in adorning her person and the other in exposing it to view.
Naiv. And I intend to do so. Since I can write roundhand, understand addition, speak French and thrum the guitar. See, Tiddy, I have not been at a boarding-school for nothing. I want to be married to get free from Mama, for though she says I am a child, I know I am a woman.



Flam. Then you need only improve yourself in card playing, but that requires genius, and you are very deficient in the polite confidence of Bon Ton. You have an awkward air of modesty, very shocking in a young lady of fortune, and I have even caught you in the indecent act of blushing.
Enter Widow speaking to Servant.
Wid. No milliners, no visitors, no cards, no messages, not so much as a dun. I thought Heartly had been better bred than to omit asking how we do after having last night squired us to the opera. Child, get your cloak and come along with me.
Naiv. La, Mama, I can't go abroad, for I expect Mr. Frizzle to finish my hair.
Wid. Flam will keep Frizzle till we return, and if he offers to go away, lock him up in the pantry. I shall call at two or three auctions and half a dozen shops. If Mr. Heartly should call be sure you teil him we shall be at home in a twinkling. Order a hack.
Flam. I shall, Madam. [Exit Flam.
Naiv. Mama, let me stay, and I warrant you Mr. Heartly shan't go till you come back.
Wid. Hey-day, no more of that, as you, hope for my favour. Mr.
Heartly, indeed, what should he see in such an awkward puss. No, Mr. Heartly is a person of taste and sentiment, judgment, and knows how to distinguish. Put on your cloak, I say.
Enter Servant.
Serv. Mr. Israël.
Wid. Pshaw, show the Jew in.
Enter Israël.
Israël. Madam, your servant. Miss Wrinkle, my dear, what are you going abroad?
Wid. Yes, to buy necessaries.
Israël. What necessaries. Madam; if Miss Naivette wants necessaries it is my business to provide them.
Naiv. Aye, but guardian, you don't know the necessaries I want.
Israël. No!
Naiv. No, they are things out of your way.
Israël. I don't think it seemly that she and you should be gadding about of a forenoon in a hackney-coach.
Naiv. True, dear Sir, so pray let me have a chariot immediately.
Wid. Sir, my child shall be bred like a Christian.



Israël. And be undone, like my son, who has renounced Judaism;
this young lady was left under my care, and I am determined to watch over her interest and education.
Wid. You may watch over her interest as much as you please; but the care of her education belongs to me. Would you make
her a Jewess? .
Israël. A Turk, an Infidel, anything rather than the immoral Christian you'd make her: is not your company a congregation for cheats and bubbles of both sexes ? Of a forenoon it is filled with female pedlars, slop-sellers, go between hair-dressers, coxcombs and fortune-hunters; and in the evening it is a common rout for card playing, resorted to by the most notorious blacklegs in all England.
Wid. It is false; none but persons of fashion are admitted to my assembly.
Israël. As you please, Madam; but Miss Naivette shall no longer be exposed to such fashionable company, whose actions are diametrically opposite to the principles they profess.
Wid. What, rob me of my child?
Naiv. Would you steal me from my Mama?
Wid. Sir, you are not my daughter's sole guardian; my brother Sir Simon Lollop, has equal power and more than equal interest. He is a gentleman.
Enter Flam.
Flam. Mr. Heartly, Madam.
Wid. Show him into the other parlour.
Naiv. Pray, guardian, excuse business. [Going.
Israël. Where are you going, child?
Naiv. To Mr. Heartly.
Wid. How now, you may stay and take a lecture. Devil take his virtue, morality and economy. [Exit Widow.
Israël. Going to Mr. Heartly. Hark ye, Mrs. What d'ye call 'em, inform Sir Simon Lollop I am waiting for him.
Flam. Here comes Sir Simon.
Naiv. Oh dear, that is right. Farewell, guardian. Come Tiddv, Mr.
Heartly is with my Mama, and I can't teil why, but it makes me uneasy. [Exeunt Naiv. and Flam.
Enter Sir Simon (gown, cap, and slippers).
Sir S. I am almost dead, but would go twice as far at any time to serve you, that is on proper notice.
Israël. Then without farther preamble let us proceed to business. This young lady, your niece —
18



Sir S. She matures fast. But why stand all the time. Blanchee!
Israël. No matter, I'll accommodate you for once. [Places chairs.
Sir S. (sits) You will kill yourself with fatigue.
Israël. As we are joint-guardians to Miss Wrinkle, it is our duty to have a watchful eye upon her education.
Sir S. Blanchee! Blanchee! Blanchee!
Israël. What's the matter?
Sir S. Oh, this confounded chair. I cannot sit at ease.
Enter Blanchee.
Blan. What a want Massa?
Sir S. Snowball, reach my settee. [Exit Blanchee.
Israël. You seem much in love with ease, Sir Simon.
Sir S. Yes, 'tis the only thing in life, I enjoy. This hard seat discomposes the whole economy of my frame.
Israël. This ward of ours is grown a fine tall sightly girl, but she's soft as butter and as ready to melt. You don't mind what I say, Sir Simon.
Sir S. How should I, being in torture?
Israël. What, are there tenter-hooks or tenpenny nails in the chairbottom ?
Sir S. Don't be so violent, Mr. Israël; for my part I am never in a passion, thanks be to my philosophy.
Israël. Thanks to your phlem. But I say the girl shan't stay in this house.
Sir S. Not with her own mother?
Israël. Her own mother is the worst company she can have; no offence, Sir Simon, your sister keeps routs, and is indeed so wholly immersed in the whirlpool of dissipation.
Sir S. I know nothing at all of the matter.
Israël. Don't you know what passes in your own house?
Sir S. It is enough for me to know what passes in my own apartment. I hear people going backwards and forwards, but I don't give myself the trouble to inquire who they are, or what they want. [Yawns.
Israël. You are master of a family. Your brother-in-law, Mr. Wrinkle, looked a little into his own af fairs.
Sir S. My brother Wrinkle brought himself to an untimely end. I am in no such hurry. Poor Wrinkle got up betimes of a morning, pried overnicely into his own concerns, feil in violent passions, and in a word, wore out his constitution with such fatigues as I am determined never to undergo. Oh, here comes my settee. Here! O my little ink-bottle.



Enter Blanchee with settee.
Blanchee, what do people sit on in your country?
Blan. Back-side, Massa.
Sir S How sirrah, odd you are a wit, Blanchee. Your wit shines like polished jet, sirrah. [Exit Blanchee.
Israël. S'life, speak to the purpose or I am gone.
Sir S. Pray be cool, Mr. Israël; you are as inflamable as a phosphorus match; touch you and you are all fire.
Israël. Have you any objection to our ward's being boarded with my sister at Hackney?
Sir S. None in the least. [Takes snuff, offers it to Israe .
Israël. I never take snuff.
Sir S. If I don't take snuff, I faU asleep.
Israël. You never was awake. What must we do with the poor girl?
Sir S. What you please.
Israël. I have also brought an account of her. Expenses for your inspection.
Sir S. I don't understand accounts.
Israël. Who lays out your money then?
Sir S. Juggle.
Israël And who examines his accounts?
Sir S.' My sister. Pfawns'
Israël. And betwixt your sister and your steward, you and your estate will go to the devil.
Sir S. It may be so, but I am resolved to go as softly as I can.
Israël. The girl shall go this very day.
Sir S. As you please. [Yawns.
Israël. She shall have her own woman, her own footman and her own apartment, if anything else occurs.
Sir S. Nothing else occurs.
Israël. Have you had any proposals made to you touching her marriage .
Sir S. Nothing else occurs. [Falls asleep.
Israël. Consider her age and fortune; we must expect overtures of that kind. Have you heard nothing from Mr. Heartly? Fast asleep by Aaron's rod. Plague upon thee for a lazy hedge-hog, a mole, a polypus, possessing animal life without power of action. I will give instant orders about moving my ward from this pernicious habitation of folly, idleness and sloth.
[Exit Israël.
Sir S. (waking) Nothing else occurs, good Mr. Israël. What, gone! O thank Heaven! Blanchee! Blanchee!
Enter Blanchee.
Blan. Sir S.
What you please have, Massa?
No signs of dinner. What, is the cook asleep ?



Blan. You please to dine vid ladies, Massa?
Sir S. No, Blanchee, 1*11 dine with you, Blanchee, in my own chamber. Blanchee, what soup is there?
Blan. Pea-soup, Massa.
Sir S. D'ye love pea-soup, Blanchee?
Blan. Me love pepper-pot more good.
Sir S. Pepper-pot with Ocra Yam Culliboo.
Blan. Hey, Massa make water my mouth.
Sir S. You shall have a calabash full, Blanchee. ha, ha, ha.
Enter Juggle with paper.
Jugg. Will your honour please to cast an eye on this week's bill?
Sir S. D'ye love capons, Blanchee?
Blan. Me love turkey, too, Massa, eat choice good young turkey for dinner, the love turkey bubba. he, he, he.
Sir S. You shall have half, Blanchee;jtlie flesh for me and the bones for Blanchee. ha, ha, ha.
Blan. Massa take a me for a dog, for yam bones, Massa?
Jugg. This bill —
Sir S. Carry it to my sister. What colour is the devil of, Blanchee ?
Blan. Negro no keep company with devils; ask baccara, Massa.
Jugg. I've no cash left, an't please your honour.
Sir S. Take ten guineas out of the drawer on account. So you won't teil what colour the devil's of, Blanchee?
[Juggle takes money from drawer and exit.
Blan. White man say him black, negro man say him white. Me say no black, no white, me say him grey, for devil be dam old. Massa.
Sir S. Well said Blanchee: me say him grey, for devil be dam old, ha, ha, ha. O rare Blanchee. ha, ha, ha. [Exeunt.
SCENE II. — A PARLOUR Widow and Hearthy discovered sitting.
Wid. I should be totally unsusceptible and indeed no better than a putrifaction, if I were insensible of Mr. Heartly's merit.
Heart. Since I am so fortunate as to have acquired your esteem, Madam, give me leave to take this opportunity of making a declaration.
Wid. A declaration — spare me, Mr. Heartly, indeed I am not prepared for such abrupt overtures.
Heart. It is in your power, Madam, to make me perfectly happy or completely miserable.
Wid. For heaven's sake, postpone your proposition. Consider I'm a widow, and my affairs are in a very awkward situation.



Heart. I only meant to disclose my sentiments.
Wid. Ah, Mr. Heartly, I am no stranger to your sentiments. There is a sort of sympathetic feeling, but —
Heart. You have a daughter.
Wid. A very amiable young lady; but how should she be otherwise, the daughter of such a —
Enter Naivette.
Wid. What brought you hither at such a critical juncture?
Naiv. Mama, I only come to fetch my tambour.
Wid. Mr. Heartly, you will be so good as to make allowances for the child's ignorance in conversation. She has not yet got rid of the rusticity of the boarding-school.
Naiv. I hope Mr. Heartly will be so kind as to excuse my defects.
When I have the experience of my Mama, I shall know better.
Enter Servant.
Serv. Mr. Israël.
Heart. Madam, I take my leave, but will wait on you in the evening.
Wid. You are always welcome.
Naiv. You are indeed, Sir. [Exit Heartly.
Wid. What a proud impudent girl. Get in there and take example by me. Here comes another of my tormentors. Come along, I say, you obstropulous fooi. [Exeunt.
Enter Israël and Enoch.
Enoch. I cannot bear this abuse, father, as I'm a Christian.
Israël. Hear me, wretch. This very morning a bull-faced fellow, a sheriffs officer, had the presumption to browbreat me at my own door and teil me he had a writ against my son.
Enoch. What an unchristian dog! But I am surprised he should look for me at your house, as all the world knows you have turned me out of doors.
Israël. Not before you became unworthy of staying within and received repeated warnings of what you had to expect. Where are my three bills of £ 200 each?
Enoch. Discounted, as I am a Christian, but not by Jews. The Christians out of charity to young fellows in distress have taken usury out of the hands of the Jews, and now do business at 50 percent. with as undisturbed consciences as any descendant from the twelve tribes.
Israël. How has my money been spent, sirrah?



Enoch. On women and wine, as I am a Christian. In short, father, usury, wine, play, and race-horses have swallowed up your six hundred pounds; this is the truth, as I am a Christian. But be not angry. I have a scheme will fill my pockets and reimburse yours. Your ward —
Israël. Not a word more; what, to betray my trust, to sacrifice innocence and virtue to infamous views! Heaven and earth, I cannot longer bear the sight of such a wretch. [Exit.
Enoch. My father is a Jew, as I am a Christian. Infamous views egad?
I don 't see any impropriety in a match betwixt Enoch Israël Esq. and MissWrinkle with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds.
Enter Flam with bandboxes.
Mrs. Tiddy! Mrs. Tiddy!
Flam. Can't stay a minute, Sir. Your father is going to remove my young lady to his sister's at Hackney, and is gone to order his carriage and will be here in half an hour. [Exit.
Enoch. Gone to order his carriage. My hack that waits at the door will do as well. I have bribed Juggle, and since I have nothing to hope from my father's indulgence, gad, 1*11 even depend on my own ingenuity. Thirty thousand — 111 have her get naturalized, slip in for a borough, live upon the loaves and fishes. But here comes the golden fleece I am to shear.
[Stands aside.
Enter Widow and Naivette.
Naiv. So, I must go to Hackney. O la, it's worse than returning to school; but I hope, Ma'am, when you come to see me, Mr. Heartly will accompany you. I have heard him say he has a very particular esteem for Mrs. Wrinkle.
Wid. A very particular esteem for Mrs. Wrinkle, sure the wench
hark ye — if you desire I should have any respect for Mrs. Wrinkle, you will never let the most distant thought of Mr. Heartly enter that little ridiculous brain of yours. Call Tiddy.
[Exit Naivette.
Enoch. (comes forward) Madam, your humble servant. My father has sent me with the coach for Mrs. Wrinkle.
Wid. I was in hopes he would have come in person to fetch her.
Enoch. He is with my aunt in the next street ready to receive her.
Wid. But to send a girl like her in a coach with a young fellow of the Beau Monde, will sound a little tramontane in the world of intelligence. Your dress is admirable.
Enoch. Suit the ton, as I'm a Christian.



Enter Tiddy and Naivette.
Wid. I hope, child, you will always behave as becomes a young lady of your birth and fortune, and avoid such mean connexions as may contaminate and annihilate those impressions of decorum and all that, which I have been at such pains to inculcate. Farewell, I shall come to see you in a day or two. Mr. Israël will conduct you to your guardian.
Naiv. Pray do come and see me, my dear Mama, and if I have said anything to contaminate or annihilate decorum I hope you will forgive poor Naivette's ignorance.
Enter Juggle.
Jugg. (apart to Enoch) The coach is ready — fly — I will detain the old lady in conversation. [Exit Enoch and Naivette.
Wid. I don 't know how — methinks this is rather abrupt — I wish I mayn't —
Jugg. (aside) The dice are thrown. Now is your time, Mr. Enoch, if you don't make a good use of it, it will be your own fault and my misfortune. Adieu to the cool hundred. I must engage her attention. — Will you be pleased, Madam, to look over this bill?
Wid. Carry it to my brother.
Jugg. Sir Simon refers me to you. Consider, Madam, the bill of marketing should be settled for your satisfaction, and that the honest servant may maintain his reputation.
Wid. True, let me see. Account of marketings — um, um — "turbot eighteen shillings". Mercy on us, 18 shillings for a turbot that did not weigh five pounds — that's monstrous, Juggle.
Jugg. It is monstrous, Madam, but it was a general fast, which made people eat a great deal of fish, and raised the price of the commodity all over London and Westminster.
Wid. "Eggs, ten shillings."
Jugg. There was a consumption of eggs that day, they were all bought up to pelt a perjured bailiff in the pillory.
Wid. Five and three is eight, and five is thirteen, one and one is two, and three is five and four is ten, sure five and four make but nine.
Jugg. Five and four is ten — is nine — ay, 'tis nine sure enough;
my poor brain, what blunders do I commit! Ah, Madam, how ready we poor servants are to wrong ourselves.
Wid. Heigh-ho; but if anything should happen to that poor child — here take it, I can read no more.
Jugg. You will see by the cash I have received, and what I have laid out, there's a balance of fifteen shillings, three pence, three farthings in my hands. Heaven forbid that I should defraud the family of the least fraction.



Enter Servant.
Serv. Mr. Israël, Madam, is come in his carriage for Miss Naivette.
Jugg. (aside) Then all is well; Master Enoch has her safe.
Wid. O Heavens! Where is he; I am betrayed! [Exit.
Jugg. I shall have my hundred pounds from Master Enoch. [Exit.
End of Act the First.
ACT II SCENE I
Sir Simon discovered smoking a cigar, Blanchee playing back-gammon.
Sir S. Cinq-tre, you can't enter, Blanchee, now throw for me. Ha, well thrown, Blanchee. Sizi-ace, Blanchee, ha! ha! Secure that point. Gadso, my cigar's out! Here light me another.
Blan. Here Massa me light de cigar me smoke de cigar.
[Lights the cigar and continues to smoke. Sir S. Only three whiffs to save me the trouble, Blanchee.
Enter Mr. Israël.
Israël. Sir Simon, I have something particular to say to you.
Sir S. Pray compose yourself, you seem strangely disordered.
Israël. (to Blanchee) I have something particular to say to Sir Simon.
Give us leave.
Blan. Me give you a leave, say all what you please.
[Holding the cigar to the candle. Israël. Will you give me leave to show you the door?
Blan. No, Massa, me light cigar for Massa.
Israël. Pray, Sir Simon, order your black to withdraw.
Sir S. Go about your business, Blanchee.
Blan. Me go about me business me light de cigar.
Israël. S'death rascal, out of the room!
Blan. Fine usage for Blanchee.
[Israël canes Blanchee out of the room. Sir S. Ha, ha, ha, the Jew beats the Pagan. I am sorry you should take such trouble. I am afraad you have heated your blood. Israël. Your niece is gone.
Sir S. I did not know it.
Israël. With my son.



Sir S. Why did you allow her to go?
Israël. My son is a rascal.
Sir S. That I do not doubt. Pray, Sir. [Offers snuff.
Israël. Get up, for shame, and let us pursue the ravisher.
Sir S. But I don't know where my things are.
Israël. You'11 make one set fire to the house. Here, your boots. Blanchee, devil! [Ringing a table bell.
Enter Juggle.
Juggle. What would your honour please to have?
Israël. Here, help your master to dress, dispatch!
Sir S. I can't buckle my stock without assistance.
Israël. Let me see..
[Goes to buckle Sir Simon's stock and almost strangles him.
Sir S. Murder!
Tuee. (running up to Sir Simon). Zooks, Sir, he looks black in the face. [Fastens the stock.
Sir S. Softly, softly, now for my wig.
Jugg. Where to find the wig the Lord knows. [After a search by Juggle Israël takes it from under a pillow of the couch] It will take three days to make it fit for wearing.
Israël. I'11 be his barber and make it fit in less than three seconds.
[Draws his fingers through the hair, shakes it, and puiling off Sir Simon's cap, puts on the wig] Now there s nothing wanting but the hat. [Juggle fetches the hat from under the couch and gives it to Sir Simon] You're armed cap-a-pie, if the devil sloth has not taken possession of soul and body. If you have any regard to your niece, to your family, to your honour
[Pushing him along.
Sir S. Softly, gently, and for heaven's sake. Alas, the buckle of my breeches has given way.
Israël. Fire and brimstone! I shall lose all patience and [Enter his servant who whispers to him] Ha, found, say you, and safe lodged. You have done well, excellent. 1*11 go thither immediately. [Exit.
Sir S. What, the stray sheep is found ? Then I may take my repose.
Enter Blanchee.
Sir S. Blanchee, lead me to the couch, softly. Bring me the eau-de-vie. Juggle, ha, Lard.
[Sinks down upon the couch and the scene closes.



SCENE II — A ROOM IN A HIRED LODGING
Enter Enoch and Flam.
Flam. Pray, Sir, whose house is this you have brought us to see.
Enoch. A widow's gentlewoman's, a friend of mine.
Flam. I suppose, Sir, you take me for a fooi.
Enoch. I want to marry Miss Wrinkle and if you favour my design, you may depend on my gratitude.
Flam. And so your father did not send you to fetch her and this is all a scheme, a plot, a plot, a conspiracy! Treason the world shall know. [Running to the window, is restrained by Enoch.
Enoch. You shall be rewarded.
Flam. I scorn your paltry offers. My character is dearer to me than all the gold of the Indies you should think for to go for to offer. [Enoch, putting a bank-bote into her hand, lowers his voice] Perhaps indeed your intentions may not be so bad, but then you ought to consider that we poor servants have nothing to depend upon but character.
Enoch. Let us make the best of our way to Scotland and the moment the knot is tied I will bind myself to pay you two thousand guineas out of my wife's fortune. Consider I am a Christian, and there is a purse as a farther specimen of my good will.
Flam. Mr. Enoch, you have convinced me that your designs are just and honourable and now I can with a safe conscience assist you. Step out till I mould the lump of sugar-paste to your inclinations. [Exit Enoch; Flam opens a chamber-door.
Enter Naivette.
Naiv. This place is frowzy. I wish my guardian would come.
Flam. (in a melancholy tone) O the wicked old Jew will come sooner than I wish. He a is crocodile, a monster of cruelty and deceit. You little know where you are going.
Naiv. Yes, I do. I am going to Hackney.
Flam. The soul, the very thought of it breaks my heart. Poor innocent creature, to be shut up.
Naiv. Where am I to be shut up?
Flam. In a — [Crying.
Naiv. Where ?
Flam. In a — [Crying.
Naiv. Dear Tiddy, speak, where?
Flam. In a, oh, in a mad-house. [Crying out.
Naiv. O in a mad-house, but I won't go. I'll open the windows and make a noise. I won't be shut up. I won't then — [Cries.



Flam. Your crying won't signify. The old man's people will say you are a patiënt going to be taken care of. There is but one way to get out.
Naiv. Show it me, dear Tiddy, let it be ever so narrow, 111 creep through it.
Flam. Mr. Enoch, who has brought us hither, is a Christian and defeats his father's Jewish barbarity. He is disposed to set you at liberty.
Naiv. Heaven reward him.
Flam. But he expects a reward from you, too.
Naiv. Anything, everything in my power.
Flam. He only desires you to give him your hand.
Naiv. What to do with my hand?
Flam. Your hand in marriage.
Naiv. Send for Mr. Heartly then. I am sure he'11 be my husband.
Flam. Mr. Heartly does not care a farthing for you. You'11 be shut between four walls.
Naiv. Oh.
Flam. Your poor head will be close-shaved.
Naiv. Oh, all my hair?
Flam. A dark room with straw to lie upon.
Naiv. Oh dear!
Flam And nothing for food but bread and water. There you must remain for life and never behold the light again.
Naiv. O mercy, send for Mr. Enoch. I'll have him. 111 have him.
Flam. (going to the door) Mr. Enoch, pray step this way.
Enter Enoch.
Flam. Miss Wrinkle thinks herself so much obliged to your Christian charity that she can do no less than make you a tender of herself and fortune.
Enoch. The recompense is more than I deserve. In conformation of your generous grant favour me with your hand.
[Going to take her hand. Flam perceives Israël who enters between them.
Flam. Never while I have life and breath to utter. You may offer me millions of sterling gold. Never shall you corrupt my honesty. You may threaten me, strike me, wound me, and stab me to the heart, but never shall you make me betray my trust.
[Kneels.
Enoch. Are you mad?
Flam. Oh, Mr. Enoch, have you no bowels, no commiseration for this poor lamb? Have you no regard to conscience, to honour, to the reputation of that worthy gentleman, your father?
Enoch. (seeing his father) Ha, you're a precious friend. [To Flam.



Israël. Away villain! I renounce thee for ever.
Enoch. I beg you'11 not believe a word of what that traitress may say. I will teil you the truth, as I am a Christian.
Israël. Away, her honesty is as plain as thy want of principal.
[Exit Enoch.
Naiv. Oh, how can you be so barbarous to me, who worked you a night-cap in a gobble, stitched with my own hand, and loved you as well as if you had been my own father, to go to send me to a mad-house?
Flam. (to Naivette) Pshaw, hold your nonsense. [Pulling her.
Naiv. To lie upon straw in a dark room, to be shaved. O mercy, do I want to be shaved!
Flam. These are all your son's doings.
Naiv. But Tiddy told —
Flam. Yes, I told him his own —
Israël. I know it. I overheard all. Come, my dear.
Naiv. Am I your poor Naivette still ? [Throws her arms about his neck.
Israël. Her simplicity is so affecting.
Naiv. Do you cry, Sir?
Israël. No, child, no, 'tis a humour I am subject to. [Wiping his eyes] But you shall never again be from under my wing till you have a protector for life.
SCENE III — WIDOW WRINKLE'S APARTMENTS Enter Enoch
Enoch. The cursed bailiffs are at the door. How shall I escape? Ha, here comes Sir Simon and the widow, so 1*11 hide behind this curtain. My creditors will have no compassion, as I am a Christian. [Drops the curtain and gets behind it.
Enter Sir Simon and Widow.
Sir S. Well, your daughter is recovered, and I am to inform you Mr. Heartly has made a formal proposal which I am now to communicate.
Wid. O dear Sir Simon, you may spare yourself the trouble. You don't imagine that I am ignorant of Mr. Heartly's sentiments.
Sir S. Then I suppose you have no objection to the match.
Wid. Assuredly, Sir, I hope I have an idea of Mr. Heartly's honour and penetrability.
Sir S. Since your consent is already obtained nothing remains but to give notice to your daughter.
Wid. O Sir, that is altogether asuperfluouspieceof super-prorogation.
Sir S. No! That's hard in such a case. It is a necessary form, and then respect must be had to her inclinations.



Wid. Her inclinations forsooth! Sir Simon, I shall take that affair upon myself. I am now to consult my own inclinations, and if I have a mind to give my hand to Mr. Heartly, she has no right to take exceptions.
Sir S. Your hand to Mr. Heartly? I don't understand you, sister.
Your dialect is too refined for me. [Taking snuff] Mr. Heartly proposed to Madam your daughter and you talk of giving him your hand. [Taking snuff.
Wid. It is false, scandalous, horrid, and tremendous. Mr. Heartly could not be such a monster, such a traitor, such a Patagonian, such a felon without benefit of clergy.
Sir S. Hey-dey! Would I were safe in my apartments. [aside] Blanchee!
Wid. Sir Simon, you stir not on pain of death till I have an explanation. [Seizes him by the collar.
Sir S. Quit your hold and 1*11 give you all the satisfaction in my power; here is a billet left on my table by Old Israël the Jew, take it and let me go. [Gives her a paper and hobbles off.
Wid. (reading) "Mr. Heartly proposes to marry Miss Wrinkle, and settle thirty thousand pounds as an equivalent to her fortune." Ha, this is too plain — ah, the perfidious recreant, has he made me a stalking-horse to aim at my daughter? Was this the drift of all those languishing looks and sighs and palpitations, fallacious fellow? [Walks about in disorder] But I will cool myself before I go into the company. [Raises the curtain, Enoch comes forward] O Heavens, I am betrayed. John, William, Flam!
Enoch. I beseech you, Madam, be composed and hear what I have to say.
Wid. After the outrage offered to me and my family —
Enoch. Madam, I have recourse to your innate goodness, to your charity. Necessity has compelled me to this step, which shame and remorse would have otherwise prevented me from taking.
Wid. I have nothing to do with your remorse and desires.
Enoch. My liberty, my fortune, nay my life is in your power. I am driven hither by bailiffs, who now beset your doors.
Wid. If your designs on my daughter were honourable, you ought to have proceeded with usual formalities, and not attempt to carry off an heiress by force. What, do we live in a Christian country, or amongst Egyptians and Froglodites; if it had not been for the unparalleled honesty and fidelity of my maid —
Enoch. If I was favoured with an opportunity to explain matters —
Wid. Why did not you apply to your father?
Enoch. My father is the greatest enemy I have.
Wid. Have you given him no reason to be so?
Enoch. Yes, Madam. I have turned Christian.
Wid. Then you should have recourse to me, Sir, but you treat me as an amphibious person unworthy to be consulted.



Enoch. Disrespect! Ah Madam, if I durst explain myself.
Wid. What can you allege in your own justification?
Enoch. As I am a Christian, I will discharge my conscience. The possession of Miss Wrinkle's fortune and the reconciliation with my father were but secondary motives. I was actuated by a more powerful impulse, by jealous despair.
Wid. I protest, Sir, you grow more and more mysterious and emphatical.
Enoch. Miss Naivette was not the first object of my attention, my views aspired to something more noble and attracting. [Looking at her with a languishing air and sighing] I had the rash ambition to contemplate those fair eyes, and they have severely punished me for my presumption. [Kneels.
Wid. For Heaven's sake, Sir!
Enoch. How could I listen to your conversation, so elegant and refined, so animated with wit, so replete with ideas!
Wid. Ah, dear Mr. Enoch, pray spare me, for —
Enoch. How could I be acquainted with the virtue of your heart, your complacency, your generosity, your benevolence!
Wid. Nay, but Sir, Sir, you overwhelm me with confusion and —
Enoch. How could I possibly contemplate all those excellences without emotion, without admiration, without transport! No, Madam, I must have been a brute without sensibility to withstand the energy of such united charms.
Wid. Granting that I had really made some impression, it is very strange that I should never have the least hint, or intimation, or suspicion.
Enoch. Though my tongue was silent, my eyes must have revealed my passion, but I perceived your heart was possessed in favour of Mr. Heartly.
Wid. Perhaps if you had been categorical!
Enoch. If you refuse to pardon a repenting Christian — Bid me begone, the prison and the grave will still relieve me.
Wid. O Mr. Israël!
Enoch. Then I shall die and be forgotten.
Wid. Oh, no more! no more! I cannot bear the thought die. Live, Mr. Israël, and reform, and I will strive to forget. His eloquence, his figure, his distress is irresistible. [aside] As you sincerely repent, I do forgive you.
Enoch. Never did you appear so amiable, as in pronouncing that angelic word! I am forgiven! Then let me seal my pardon on that dear hand.
Wid. Pray, Sir, consider the impropriety, the indecorum and all.
Enoch. Oh, I hear my father's voice.
Wid. O Lard, I would not for the world — I am in such a criterion, pray let us retire behind the curtain.
[Enoch and Widow go behind the curtain.



Enter Israël and Heartly.
Heart. When you have more temper I shall speak.
Israël. And I shall speak in the mean time and teil you, Sir, I don't at all approve of your proceeding.
Heart. I am sorry for it.
Israël. It is not above an hour since you made formal proposals for a match with Miss Wrinkle, which proposals I communicated to my fellow-guardian, and now you want to retreat. Sir, this is mere trifling. What! We an't children to be treated in this manner.
Heart. What would you have me do, Sir ? I suppose the lady's affections are otherwise engaged. What other construction should I put on her going alone to the lodgings of a young fellow?
Israël. My son is a rascal and a villain, and decoyed her on false pretences.
Widow comes forward.
Wid. You wrong your son, Mr. Israël. Sweet youth, he possesses the amiable in a most eminent degree.
Israël. Here is a conversion: his enemy became his friend. Why, this is as extraordinary as the fellow's renouncing Judaism, and embracing Christianity.
Heart. Madam, your most obedient, I am much mortified that anything should happen to interfere with the hopes I had of being allied to your family.
Wid. (with an affected air of disdain) Sir, your servant. If it is not ordained that my family should be honoured with the alliance of Mr. Heartly, I hope fate has something in reserve for that great and terrible misfortune.
Israël. Sir, my conscience, my honour demands that I should bear witness to my own shame. My son is a worthless fellow. He had a base design upon Miss Wrinkle's fortune, and tampered with the chamber-maid to betray her trust, but she, like a faithful servant, withstood all his temptations.
Wid. I say, 'tis false. Come forward, injured youth.
[Enoch comes forward.
Israël. Ah, has the fellow been converting you behind the curtain?
Enoch. Sir, I am neither such a villain as to use those infamous arts you mention, nor so lost to all sense of character as to hear myself misrepresented without endeavouring to do myself justice.
Israël. Ha, traitor, avaunt, begone!
Wid. This is my house. Speak out. It is a privilege granted to felons, and malefactors to plead in their own defence.



Enoch. That I intended to repair my shattered fortune by a match with Miss Wrinkle, and that I used some indiscreet means to accomplish it, I own to my shame. But I had not the least suspicion of Mr. Heartly's views, otherwise I should never have attempted to execute such a scheme. This is the truth, as I am a Christian.
Israël. What a conscientious hypocrite!
Enoch. The most criminal part of my conduct was my bribing the maid to use her influence in my favour.
Israël. She was too honest to be corrupted.
Enoch. Sir, you're greatly imposed upon. Here is the young lady. She will teil the truth.
Enter Naivette, who curtsies to the company and eyes Heartly with an express look of amorous resentment.
Heart. What an air of elegant simplicity! [aside.
Wid. Come hither, you are called upon to disravel a sort of a mystery and all that.
Israël. When you was carried to that place where I found you, was you not told I was a wicked man ?
Naiv. Yes, and Tiddy assured me Mr. Heartly did not care a farthing for me, that I had no friend in the world who could save me but Mr. Enoch.
Wid. And so you thought it was better to take —
Naiv. Any husband rather than be shaved and shut up betwixt four walls.
Israël. Child, child, this is impossible. I myself heard the maid declare she would rather die than consent to your marrying that reprobate.
Enoch. True, Sir. She happened to perceive you in the passage and with a dexterity and confidence peculiar to herself, changed her note in an instant knowing she had no other chance of saving her place and her character.
Enter Juggle.
Wid. Send hither my maid immediately, quick.
Jugg. Mrs. Flam, that was — is just gone off bag and baggage in a hackney-coach with Blanchee the negro, who it seems is married to her these three weeks. (Exit Juggle.



Enter Sir Simon Lollop.
Sir S. There is such a cursed fracas in this house. I can enjoy no rest. I may as well take lodgings in Bedlam then. I am robbed.
Wid. Robbed in my house, brother?
Sir S. Blanchee has picked my pocket and is fled with Cleopatra.
Israël. Sure you won't leave the house till you have given your niece away in marriage to this gentleman.
Sir S. If it may be done immediately. And I should be proud to do the same office for my sister.
[Throwing himself on a settee.
Wid. Perhaps you may live to have that honour, Sir Simon Lollop.
Enoch. Now that matters seem to be in such a happy train, may I hope this good company will intercede with my father in my behalf. I have been wild and extravagant and undutiful, but I have severely suffered for my follies, and if my father will forgive me, I will live as a Christian should.
Israël. Never shall I compound with dishonour like thine; he has squandered away above fifteen thousand pounds, that I have paid; besides innumerable debts contracted.
Sir S. (rising) Fifteen thousand pounds! Egad, a pretty sum! He must be a young man of spirit. Enoch, I beg the favour of your acquaintance. You must have seen a great deal of the world. Your son is a very pretty fellow and a handsome fellow. Sister, what say you?
Wid. I say, should he still continue an exile from his father's house, I will put him in a house of his own.
Israël. Nay, I myself will satisfy his creditors, if he is really sensible of his folly and resolved to reform. But widow, he courted you on a forlorn hope, poverty behind preventing his retreat.
Enoch. But my esteem, Madam.
Wid. A fig for your esteem. But these are not times for despairing.
Italy and America have opened their ports for neglected widows. [Exit widow.
Sir S. Now your heart is opened, Mr. Alderman, extend your charity to me also. I have got no money.
Enoch. I'll get you accommodated. A Christian friend of mine shall supply you.
Israël. And what are your Christian terms ?
Enoch. The most reasonable legal interest, and to purchase a ring for every hundred, a guinea for every ring they will sell for four and sixpence.
Sir S. The rest is ready money, eh?
Enoch. Why no, hundred pounds drafts on bankers at two days' date for every hundred, which you may change for checks at sight for a pound a piece.
Sir S. I consent, for my af fairs are at sixes and sevens.
19



Israël. So far, like my offspring here, you are a good Christian, for yoar right hand knoweth not what your left hand doeth. But you shall have money from me. I will show you there are some Jews who practise what many Christians only profess.
Enoch. I now perceive I have been too rigid in my maxims of discipline and made too scanty an allowance for the frailty of human nature.
Sires may preach rules which sons cannot obey, For youth is wild and passions will have way. Who hopes youth's fiery spirit to restrain,
Must gently guide him with a flowing rein; >
If roughly checked, he flies indignant o'er the plain. J
Finis.



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Terence, Andria, ed. R. Klotz, Leipzig, 1865.
W. Todt, Lessing in England 1767—1850, Heidelberg, 1912.
D'Blossiers Tovey, Anglia Judaica: or the History and Antiquities of
the Jews in England, Oxford, 1738.
A. W. Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature, 3 vols. London, 1899.
S. T. Williams, Richard Cumberland, his Life and Dramatic Works,
Yale University Press, 1917.
L. Wolf and J. Jacobs, Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, London, 1888. Miss H. Zimmern, Maria Edgeworth, London 1883.



GENERAL INDEX
Aaron 42
Aaron, the Jew . . . 58,59, 222
Aaron ben Saddai 63
Aarones, Joseph 155
Abarbanel, Solomon .... 104
Abbé Gregoire 69
Abbey, C. J 44
Abbott, F. G 12, 94
Abednego 149, 189, 252—255, 257 Abednego Potiphar . . . 122 149,
Abigail 80, 185
Abrahams, Abraham 28, 66, 67, 72, 73, 80, 170, 193, 220,
234. 235. 236, 240 Abrahams, Dr. Israël 9, 80, 93,
94. i85
Absalom 187, 189—192
Absalom and Achitophel 84, 239 Absentee, The . 71, 76—78, 267 Abstract of Mr. Collin's Discour se 21
Addison, Joseph 19
A delheid von Wuifingen ... 73
Adventurer, The 61
Adventures of a Halfpenny . 61
Aesculapius 130
Age of Enlightenment, the
14, 44, 68
Aguilar 139
Ahasverus 245
Aickins, Mr 199
Alonzo, Don 85, 86
Amalekite 241—244
Ambrosio; or, The Monk 245, 246
Amyot 196
Andrews, Miles Peter 40, 134,
179—186, 188, 192, 206, 248, 264 Andrews and Pye ...... 73
Andria ~ 113
Anglia Judaica 104
Anglo-Jewish Portraits . . . 124
Antiochus 109
Antiochus the Great; or, The
Fatal Relapse 108
Antonio 95—97, 98, 102
Apology for the Life of Colley
Cibber, An 108
Arabian Nights Entertainments 191
Aristophanes 186
Arnall, W 104
Ashkenazic community, the . 33
Ashkenazim 129, 193
Ashton, John 155, 158
Athaliah 109
Augustus 109
L'avare 117, 174
Baddeley, Robert 185, 197, 213,
215, 217
Bagbug, Ribi 132
Bage, Robert . . . 75—76, 246 Baker, Reed. Jones 123, 137, 152, 164, 176, 177, 191, 209,
218, 230
Balland, J 91
Balthazar 35
Bankrupt, The 156
Bannister, John 213, 214,
230, 247
Barabbas 20, 24, 83, 99, 259, 260
Barebones 181
Barlaeus 115
Barnaby Rudge 71
Barney 34, 35
Baron Munchausen 69
Basnage, Jacob Christian . 104
Basevis 139
Bassanio 95—99
Bate 206
Bathurst, Richard 61
Bawble, Lord .... 1x8—120 Beaumont and Fletcher 87,
90, 91, 130, 267
Becker, Gustav 87
Bee, The 55
Bee, Jon 207
Beggar's Opera, The 35, 106,
110, 113, 114, 161, 212, 267 Behrend, Fritz . . . 46, 47, 235 Belasco, Aby 194



Belden, M. M. 10, 122, 147,
150, 152, 173, 207
Bellario gg
Belle's Strategem, The 49, 169—
170
Belshazzar 109
Belteshazzar; or, The heroic
Jew 109
Bentham, Jeremy ... 68, 75
Benwash 31, 166, 221
Berberiskos 128, 131
Berenice 79
Bernal 139
Bessus 91
Beth Holim 124—125, 127—
132. 265
Bevis Marks Synagogue, The 125 Bible, The .... 21, 46,121, 157 Biblical Jews 21, 53, 108—109
Biddle, Edward 109
Biographia Dramatica, see: Baker, Reed, Jones.
Bland, John 109
Bleeker, Dr. L. H. K. . . 125, 126
Bliss, Leslie Edgar 196
Bloch, Maurice 185
Blossiers Tovey, Dr. D' . . 104
Boaden 230, 257
Boaz 188
Bodleian Library, The . . .124 Bold Stroke for a Wife, A . . 107
Booth, Edwin 144
Bos, K 103
Brereton, Thomas 109
Bridgewater House Library . 195 British Essayists, The 27, 28, 28, 56, 60—64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72—74, 142, 144, 170, 193 Broadbrim, Melchisedech 150—152
Bunyan, John 110
Burgoyne, General John 31,
78, 206, 221 Burney, Fanny 58—60, 76,
78, 222, 267
Burns 207
Busie Body, The 106
Byron, Lord 56
Cacafogo 130
Cadosa 32
Caga Fuego, Dr 127, 130
Caignez 258
Calisch, E. N. 9, 19, 104, 123,
133. 148 Cambridge History of English Literature, The 23, 44, 56,
78, 104, 120 Cambridge, Richard .... 62 Camera Obscura .... 126, 127 Canvassing for Votes . . . .110 Captain O'Blunder', or, The
Brave Irishman 141
Captivity, The 55, 56
Carat, Aaron 34, 77
Cardozo, J. L. 9, 26, 83, 84,
107, 157, 245 Carlos, Don 85, 86, 88—90, 92,
163—165, 168
Carnival plays 94
Casafondo, Donna Leonora de 72 Castle Rackrenl . . 71, 76—77
Castro, Jacob de . . . . 129, 130
Castro, Don Juan de 130
Castro, Moses Pereyra de . .131 Castro Sarmento, Jacob de
in, 127, 129, 130, 133
Cecilia . 58—60, 76, 78, 222, 267 Centlivre, Mrs. Susannah,
106—107, 167
Cervantes 87, 157
Chaplet, The 133
Chapter of Accidents, The 179, 206
Characteristicks 21
Charles Grandison, Sir, 51—53, 267
Charles the Second . 14, 84, 92 Charlotta of de Gevallen eener
Zweedsche Gravinne .... 46
Chaucer 13
Christian turned Turk, A 31,
166, 221
Cibber, Colley 20, 107—109, 113 Cibber, Theophilus, 38, 103, 109—112, 114, 120, 141, 142,
143, 268
Citizen, The . . . 155—156, 174



Citizen of the World, The . . 55 Clandestine Marriage, The . 205 Clark Russell, W. 186, 189,
247. 257
Clive, Lord 205, 207
Cohen, Levy Barent .... 193
Cole, Mrs 122
Coleridge 73
Collier's Short View of the Immorality and Profaness of the
English Stage 108
Collier, J. P 196
Collin, Anthony 21
Colman, George 28, 40, 62, 63,
64, 142, 205 Colman, George, The Younger 249 Commissary, The .... 149, 150 Common Prayer, Book of 26, 266 Complaints of the Children of Israël concerning the Penal
Laws 104
Complete Refutation of the Falsehoods alleged against Erasmus Lewis, Esq.,A . 25
Confederacy, The 106
Congreve, F. A. . . 135, 139, 144 Congreve, William . . . 39, 105 Connoisseur, The 28, 62, 64,
142, 194
Continental drama 10
Contrast, The; or, The Jew and the Married Courtesan 195,
196, 219
Contrat Social 68
Cooke, W 135,141, 144
Coquin . . . .40, 181—183, 184
Corneille 84
Coronation of David, The . . .109 Cortissos, Don José .... 24
Costa, Anthony da 133
Costa, Benjamin Mendez da . 237 Costa, Emanuel Mendez da . 133
Costa, Isaac da 64
Costa, Solomon da . . . 64, 237 Count Fathom, The Adventures of 41—43, 46, 48, 50, 51,
155. 203, 204, 208, 235
Country Attorney, The . . . 224
Country Girl, The 178
Country Wife, The . . . 167, 178 Cour, Phelipe de la, alias Abraham Gomes Ergas . . 127, 129
Cowley, Mrs 49, 169—170
Cozeners, The 116, 150, 154,
156—159, 166, 174, 181
Crane, Edward 109
Crisp 59. 60
Critic, The 160, 219
Cromwell 14, 45
Cross, J. C 218
Cross Purposes .... 160—161
Crowne, John 11
Cumberland, Richard 9, 28, 40, 42, 65—74, 80, 116, 134, 144, 149, 153. i67. l7°. *74> 176, 188, 193, 207, 208, 209, 218, 219—240, 243, 252,
256, 259, 264, 267, 269 Cure for the Heart-Ache, A 207 Curll, Edmund . . . 29. 30, 266
Curtisos 24
Custom of the Country, The
107, 108, 148
Daborne, Robert 31, 78, 166, 221 Dalinda 85, 86, 88—90, 166, 168
Daniël 109, 255
Daniël, The Book of ... . 254 Daniël in the Lion's Den 109, 255
Daniël Deronda 147
Dapper, Dr. 0 125
David and Goliath 109
Death of Adam, The .... 109 Declaration of Rights, The. . 68 Defence of an Essay of Dramatic
Poesy 87
Defence of Usury 75
Defoe, Daniël 19—24, 25, 31,
38, 264, 266 Dekker, Thomas .... 95, 101 Delilah, the Philistine ... 88
Delvile 59
Dengel 237
Destruction of Jerusalem, The 11



Devil upon Two Sticks, The
150—152, 159
Diable Boiteux, Le 150
Diablo Cojuelo, El 150
Diamond Ring, The; or, The
Jew Outwitted .... 195, 215 Diaz Fernandes, Joseph . . . 129 Dickens, Charles 31—35, 37,
42, 71, 218, 220, 267 Dibdin, Charles, The Younger
258—259
Dibdin, Thomas John . 252—258 Dictionary of National Biography . . 135, 140, 144, 189
Diego und Leonore 73
Dillon Croker, T. F 9
Discourse of Freethinking. . . 21
Disraelis 139
Dissipation 40, 179—186, 192, 206 Dobson, Austin . . . .112, 113 Dobson, Henry Austin ... 56
Dogget 100, 135
Dohm 69
Don Quixote . . . 87
Don Quixote in England 117,
118, 149
Dorcas 40,231, 233
Dornton, of de Jeugdige Losheid
en TJitsporige Kinderliefde . 222 Doublé Dealer, The . . . 39, 105 DoubleDisappointment.The 133,134
Douce Prints 124
Dowton 252
Dramatist, The 206
Drapier's Letters 25
Dryden, John 11, 83—94, 95, 100, 102, 143, 166, 167, 168, 169, 239, 240, 264, 267, 268 Duenna, The (Pottinger) . .169 Duenna, The (Sheridan) 153, 160, 161—170, 175, 203, 222
Dunciad, The 30
Duncombe, William .... 109 Dutch Jews 55, X2o
Early Diary of Fanny Burney, The . . . 59, 60
Ebrew Jew 59, 221
Edgeworth, Maria 34, 42, 71,
80, 144, 193, 218, 220, 267
Edward the First 13
Edwin 199
Egremont 245
Eitsen, Paul von 245
Elder Brother, The . . . 107, 108 Election Entertainment . . .110
Elias, Samuel 194
Eliot, George 147, 255
Elizabethan Jew, The . . 9, 11
Ellis, Annie Raine 59
Emilia 40
Enchanter, The\ or, Love and
Magie 164
England's Glory 244
English Comic Writers, The . 110 English Studies .... 84, 99
Englishman, The 176
Englishman in Paris, The . 26
Enoch 200—201, 203,204
Enoch Issachar .... 170, 203 Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, An
31—35, 267
Ephraim 148, 256—257
Ephraim Barebones . . . .148 Ephraims, Leah 179, 185, 213—214
Ephraims, Solomon 214
Era Almanac, The 9
Eremit auf Formentera, Der 251
Esther 44, 111, 266
Esther; or, Faith Triumphant 109
l'Etourdi 90, 91
Eugenia and Adelaide . . .167 Every Man his own Broker . 206 Examiner, The 25
Fagin 20, 31—35, 42, 166, 267 Fair Refugee, The 180, 185— 186, 195, 206, 209—213, 215
False Friend, The 218
False Impressions 207
Falstaff 59
Family Distress 250
Family Quarrels 258



Farquhar, George 105—106,
"3. 135 Fashionable Lover, The 70,
116,153,167,174,219—220, 224
Fatal Marriage, The .... 87
Fawcett, John 257
Fence, Barney ... 32, 34, 35
Fenton, Elijah 109
Ferguson, James 27
Ferriar 244
Fielding, Henry 31—36, 78, 103, 117—122, 135, 149, 156.
174, 185, 188, 263, 264, 267, 268
Filosofo di Campagna, II . 167
Fitzgerald, P 33
Flaw 156—158
Fleece'em, Mrs. 156—158, 181
Fletcher 107, 148, 232
Fonseca, Abraham da ... 129 Foote, Samuel 26, 116, 117, 122, 134, 142, 147—159, 166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 181,
185, 186, 188, 196, 206, 207, 268 Fragment from the W ander -
ing Jew 274
Franklin, Andrew 241, 245—248
French Revolution, The 15, 274
Front-de-Boeuf 75, 79, 166, 217
Fungus, Isaac 149
Fungus, Zachary .... 149, 150
Furness, H. H. 100, 101, 144, 145
Galenus 127, 130
Galland, Antoine 191
Garrick 164, 177—178, 205,
264, 268
Gay, John 35,106, 113
Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott, 46, 47, 48, 67, 70, 72, 235,
251, 256, 267 Genest, J. 96, 99 100, 107,
196, 197, 199, 213
Genlis, Madame 109
Gentleman's Magazine, The . 208
George the First 22
George the Second 139, 140,
144. 177
German Jews 14, 25, 127, 129, 131
Gideon 62
Gideon (Sampson) 43, 62, 134,
139. 17°. 237
Gladstone 15, 231
God's Revenge against Punning 29
Goffe, Thomas 83
Gold 259
Goldsmid, Aaron 237
Goldsmid, Abraham .... 193 Goldsmid, Benjamin, . . 193, 237 Goldsmith, Oliver 51, 54—58,
160,218
Gollancz, Sir Israël 177
Good Aunt, The .... 34, 78 Goodchild, Charlotte 136, 137,
138, 139
Goodchild, Sir Theodore 136, 138 Gordon, Lord George . 71—72 Gordon Riots, The . . 71, 265
Governess, The 170, 203
Grabowski, Amalekite 241—244 Granville, George, Earl of Lansdown 11, 26, 95—102, 105, 112, 135, 143, 166, 174,
262, 268
Gratiano 97
Green, J. R. 12,13, 68,140,148, 149
Greville, Mrs 196
Gripe, Sir Charles 106
Gripe, Sir Francis 106
Groom, Squire ..... 136, 138
Groot, Hugo de 115
Guardian, The 56
Guevara Luiz Velez de . . . . 150
Gulwell . , . 121
Gusman 87
Habakkuk (Habakuk) 122,
I5°—!52. I53. I59. 166 Hackabout, Moll . . . 115—116 Hagar in the Wilderness . .109
Halfon, Isaque 131
Halliwell, J. O. ....... 245
Haman 111
Hamon 83 Handel . 103



Handwörterbuch des deutschen
Aberglaubens 126
Hannase, Abraham Ben ... .60
Hannay, David 50
Harlequin Nabob 207
Harlot's Progress, A 103, 110,
112—114, 118, 120, 152, 263 Harlot's Progress, The 103,109—
112, 114, 134, 142, 212
Harrel 58, 59 76
Harrington 42, 71. 76, 78—80,
144. 193
Harrris, James 199
Harrison, Thomas 109
Hart, Aaron 63
Haunch of Venison 57
Hazlitt, William 15, 110, 169,
186, 213
Heartly 200, 201, 204
Hebrew Melodies 56
Heirtss, The 31, 221
Hennings, William 11
Henriquez, Jacob 55
Henry IV 59
Herod the Great 109
Heron Election Ball .... 207 Herring, Thomas .... 44, 103 Hertford, the Marquis of
172, 196
Herzfield 70
Hesperia 99
Hezekiah, King of Judah . . 109
Higgons, Bevill 95
Hilarius 255
Hildebrand 126
Hill, Aaron 109
Hippolyta 107
l'Histoire de la Religion des
Juifs, etc 104
History of Daniël, The . . . .255 History of the Swedish Countess
of Guildenstern, The . 46, 267 Hogarth, William 103, 110, 112—114, 117, 118, 120,
132, 143, 152, 263, 267 Holcroft, Thomas 69, 109,
222—223, 248
Hopkins 172
Hugh of Lincoln 13
Humanitarian Movement, the
46, 73. 249—259 Humphry Clinker, 48, 49, 204,
207, 256 Huntington Library, Henry E.
12, 195, 196 Hyamson, A. M. 21, 44, 45, 64, 93, 114, 133, 134, 139, 155,
170, 237
Hypocrates .... 127, 128, 129
Idler, The 60, 194
Ikey 35
Inchbald, Mrs. Elizabeth . . . 250 Inquisition, The 54, 66, 70, 72,
73. 127
Inquisitor, The 73
Invoice 150
Irishman in London, The . . 223 Ironical Recommendations of
the Present Time 61
Irving-Gratz incident, the . 80
Isaac Levi 295
Isaac of York 22, 37, 75, 79,
166, 217, 234, 236, 259, 267
Isabella 87
Isabella; or, The Fatal Mar-
riage 178
Israël, Mr. 28, 199—204, 249, 268 Israelites,The ',or,The Pampered Nabob 12, 28, 195, 198—209,
249, 254, 268, 269
Issachar 46, 160
Italian Jews . . . 108,128, 131 It is never too Late to Mend
259, 267 Ivanhoe 22, 38, 75, 79, 80, 166,
217, 234, 236, 255, 267
Jabal 230—233, 237, 239, 243 Jacke Drum's Entertainment 26 Jacob (a character in Harring-
ton 79
Jacob (the patriarch) 97, ior, 148



Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
the 43. 103
Jacobs, The Jew. . . • 156 Jacobs, Dr. J. . . . 51, 139, 245
Jacobs, Solomon 35
James the Second 93
Jephson, Robert 221
Jephta's Rash Vow; or, The
Virgin's Sacrifice 108
Jephthah's daughter 109
Jerome, Don 161—163
Jerusalem Infirmary, The; or, A Journey to the Valley of Jehosaphat 103, 123—132,
133, 152, 261, 265 Jessica 40, 60, 77, 95, 96, 101,
102, 183, 185, 192 Jessurun Rodrigues, Joseph 129 Jessurun Cardozo, Rev. D. A. 124 Jew, The 9, 14, 40, 42, 74, 209,
220, 221, 223—240, 252 Jew Bill, The 41, 44, 45, 5°.
61, 62, 79, 134, 139, 260, 268 Jew Decoyed, The 103, 114— 117, 120, 153, 188, 203, 212,
261, 264
Jew brokers . . . 154—156, 167 Jew and the Doctor, The 189,
252—255, 258 Jew and the Gentile, The 195, 218 Jew of Malta, The . . 80, 260 Jew of Mogadore, The 74, 176,
238—239. 244
Jew Pedlar, The 258
Jew's Tragedy, The 11
Jew of Venice, The 11, 26, 95— 102, 105, 135, 175
Jew of Wilna, The 258
Jewish oaths 14
Jewish Chronicle, The . 9, 124 Jewish dialect 116, 117, 153, 157, 183, 186, 188, 197,204,
213, 219, 236, 243, 264 Jewish Encyclopaedia, The 14, 15. 24, 33, 126, 133, 134, 139, 153, 155. 193. 194. 233. 237 Jewish fences . 31—35, 78, 221
Jewish Museum, The . . . .124 Jewish Quarterly Review, The . 9
Jew's Beard, The 215
Jews, Turks, Infidels and
Heretics 26—28, 53, 62, 266 Johnson, Dr. . . . 60—61, 142
Joseph Andrews 31
Joseph made known to his
Brethren. . . . 109
Joseph sold by his Brethren. 109
Josephus 21
Joshua 170
Joshua, The Book of ... . 46 Journal of a voyage to Lissabon,
The 36
Journey from this world to the
next, A 35
Judas Maccabaeus 103
Jude, Der 237
Juden, Die 48
Julian the Apostate .... 35
Kemble 215
Kennedy, Mrs 199
Kenwood, Sydney H 70
Kidson, Frank 10, 114
Kind der Liebe, Das . . 250, 252
King and no King, A . . 90, 91
King John 80
Kirby, Miss .185
Kirkman, J. T. 135, 139, 141, 144
Kit, Sir 76, 77
Kotzebue, August Friedrich Ferdinand von, 73, 244,
249—252, 256, 261, 268
Laban 97, 101, 258
Labradore, Ephraim . .180—185
Labradore, Tudith 40, 182—
183, 185
Lamego, Moses 237
Landa, M. J. 10, 12, 31, 32, 34. 35, 43. 49. 72. 83, 116, 123, 134, 170, 195, 197. 213, 218, 231, 232, 235, 247, 258, 260 Larpent Collection, The 195,
196, 198, 209, 213, 215



Larpent, John 195, 196
Latter, Mary 109
Launcelot Gobbo . . 96, 100, 232 Launcelot Greaves, The Ad-
ventures of Sir 48
Lawyer, The Jew and the Yorkshireman, The .... 255
Lea 237
Leah 61
Leben des swedischen Grdfin,
Das 46—48, 235
Lecky, W. E. H. . 60 103, 214
Lee, Sophia 179, 206
Lee, William .... 20, 21, 24
Lélie 90. 91
Leoni, Myer 164—165
Leonora 86
Lessing, G. E. 15, 48, 69, 70,
236, 251, 256, 261, 267
Lethe 177, 261
Letter concerning Enthusiasm 21 Leven van de Zweedsche Gra-
vinne G, Het 46
Levi, the Jew 179
Levi, David 73
Levi, Isaac 217, 259
Levi, alias Lewis, Henry . . 25
Leviculus 142
Levite 39
Lewis, Erasmus 25
Lewis, Matthew Gregory
245, 246
Liberal Opinions 255
Licensing, Act 196
Lichtenberg 144
Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, commonly called Mother Ross, The . . 24 Life of King Ahasverus, The; or, The Delightful History of
Esther 109
Linley 213,214
Little Hunchback, The 187,
189—192
Locket 35
Lockhart, J. G 80
Lollop, Sir Simon 200—204, 206
Lopez 85, 86, 88, 90, 139, 168
Lopez, Sir Gideon 30
Lorenzo 40,94,101, 183
Lounger, The 206
Love a la Mode (Macklin) 133—142, 155. 157. 167. !69. 175, 177, 188, 222, 263, 268 Love a la Mode (Southland) 142
Lovegold 117
Love Makes a Man; or, The
Fop's Fortune . . . 107—108 Love Triumphant 83—94, 103,
104, 143, 167, 168
Lover, The 141
Lovers' Vows 250
Lucy 118, 119
Lurewell, Miss 115
Lyon Phelps, Prof. Wm. . . 53 Lyons, Israël 80
Mabon, C. B 9
Macaulay, Thomas Babington,
15. 59. 93. 207, 231
Mackenzie 206
Macklin, Charles 26, 118, 133— 146, 147, 155, 157, 159, 166, 168, 169, 186, 188, 262, 263, 268
Macklin, Mrs 135
Macready, William . . . 192, 223 MacSarcasm, Sir Archy 136,
137. 138, 143
Magpie, The 255, 258
Maid of the Oaks, The .... 206
Mamon . 26
Man and Superman 153
Man as he is not; or, Herm-
sprong 75—76, 246
Man of the World, The 136, 143 Manasseh, King of Judah, . 157 Manasseh, Joshua 41—43, 45—47. 51. 67, 72, 80, 204,
208, 235 Manasseh ben Israël 45, 46,
115—117, 203, 268 Manasses, Moses 154 156—
159, 166, 181, 196 Mandrake Mrs. . .105, 106, 135



Marannos . 92
Mardonius 91
Margoliouth, Rev. Moses 21,
22, 64, 71, 73, 125, 237
Mariamne 109
Marlowe 24, 185, 259
Marner, Silas 255
Martin 126
Mascanlle 91
Maskwell 39
Mathuzalem, Mr 247
Maty's Review 44
Melchisedech 150—151
Melvil 41
Memoirs of Captain George
Carleton, The 24
Mendelssohn, Moses . . 15, 69 Mendez da Costa, Emanuel . 133
Mendez, John 30
Mendez, Moses ...... 133, 134
Mendil, Judah 130
Mendil, Raquel 130
Mendoza 153
Mendoza, Daniël 153, 194,
233. 254. 258 Mendoza, Isaac 153, 160,
161—170, 175, 193, 203, 222 Mendoza, Moses 152—154,
159. 168
Merceda, Solomon . . . 51—53 Merchant of Venice, The 40, 63. 72. 84, 134, 136, 183, 192 223, 232, 260, 261, 262, 267
Mercurius Politicus 20
Meshach 149, 254
Methodism 122, 151
Methodists . . . 121, 147, 148, 149
Meyer, W 9
Meymon, Ben 30
Michelson, H . . 9, 13, 31, 94 Midnight, Mrs. 118, 119, 121,
122, 135
Miles, D. H 90
Minor, The .... 122, 148, 173
Mirror, The 64, 206
Mirabeau 67, 69
Miser, The 117, 174
Miss Lucy in Town 31, 103,
117—122, 135, 156, 185, 212 Missionary Societies .... 68
Mistake, The 92
Mistake of a Minute, The . . .213
Mist's Journal 20
Mite, Sir Matthew 152—154, 206
Moabite, Mr 105, 106, 135
Moabite 135, 138
Mogul Pitt 205
Moliere 84, 90, 91, 117, 167,
174, 186, 267
Moncrieff, W. T . 32
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac . . 90
Montenero, Miss 80
Montenero . . . 42, 76, 79—80
Moore, Dr. John 45
Moore, Edward .... 27, 61 Moore, Thomas . . 163, 164, 167 Moral Tales 34, 71, 76, 77—78, 79
Moravia, The Jew 55
Mordecai, 49, 76, 77, 78, 111, 135.136—138,140—143,147 148, 157, 159, 166, 167, 169, 175, 188, 215—217, 222,
254, 256, 266 Mordecai's Beard 195, 215—218,
233. 253, 269 Mordecai, Beau 111—112,
134. *42 Mordecai Lazarus 122, 142,
147, 155
More, Mrs. Hannah . . 109, 255
Mortimer 206
Morton, Thomas 134, 185,
207, 239, 241—244, 248, 264 Moses, 13, 63, 73, 160, 163—
165, 167, 170—175, 185 Moses and Shadrac 176, 188,
195—198
Moses in the Bulrushes . . . 109
Mottley, John 109
Murphy, Arthur 155—156, 174
Mushroom, Mr 206
Mutual Friend, The .... 42 Mysterious Husband, The . .149 Mystery plays 94



Nabob, The 152—154, 157,
159, 168, 206, 207
Nabob Bute 205
Nabob Outwitted, The .... 207 Nabobs, 200—201, 203—208, 212 Nadab . . . 238—240, 244, 251
Naivette 200—202, 204
Naphtali 167, 174, 219—220, 239 Nathan . . . 152—154. 159, 236
Nathan Ben Funk 55
Nathan der Weise 15, 48, 69,
70, 236
Nathan the Wise 70,144—146,267
Natural Son, The 250
Naturlization Bill, The, see:
The Jew Bill 
Nebuchaddonnezzar, Sir Gre-
gory 117, 149
Nebuchadnezzar .... 148 149 Nebuchadnezzar Zebulon . .148 Neck or Nothing . . . 177—178
Ned Drowsy 28, 67
Negersclaven, Die 244
Negro Slaves, The 244
New Hay at the Old Market 2493
Nichols, John 110, 113
Nicoll, Allardyce 10, 69, 73, 84, 108, 117, 120, 123, 152, 167, 177, 186, 192, 195, 197, 206, 207, 218, 219, 231, 244,
258, 265
Nieto, Isaac 129
Noah, Samuel 155
Non-Juror, The 107
No-Popery Riots 71
N uovo-christianos 92
O'Brallaghan, Sir Callaghan
136. 138
O'Brien, William 160
Observer, The 28, 65—68, 72,
73, 144, 170, 193, 208, 220, 267 O'Keeffe, John 116, 117, 134,
179, 185, 186—192, 243, 248, 264
Old Gobbo 96
Oliphant, Mrs 167
Oliver Twist 31—35, 42, 166, 267
On Dr. Rundl, Bishop of
Derry 26
On the Words Brother Protestants and Fellow Christians 28
Opfertod, Der 250, 251
Opera Historica 74
Orators, The 149
Oriental Magie; or, Harlequin
Nabob 206
Orthodox, Moses 64
Osborne . . 114
Ost, Gotthardt 108
Oulton 252
Pactolus 155
Palaestra 87
Palmer, R 247
Palti 238—240
Pamela 49
Pasquin 117, 118
Passage in the Life of Mr.
Watkins Tottle, A 35
Paz, Jacob de 131
Peachum 35
Peck, Francis 109
Pedrosa, Nicolas 66, 72, 73, 240 Pelham Government, The . . 61 Penha, Mordechay de la . .128
Percy, Thomas 245, 246
Peregrine Peckle, The Adventures of 38—40, 42, 46, 50,
53. 63. 64, 120, 204
Pereira, Joshua 30
Pertinax, Sir 143
Peterborough, the Earl of . 24
Philips, John 87
Philipson, D. 9, 33, 34, 42, 99,
145. 146
Philistines 88
Pie voleuse, La 258
Pilgrim's Progress, The . .110 Plagiary, Sir Fretful . . .219
Plumptre, Anne 250
Poem on Dorinda, A ... . 74
Polaccos 129
Polish Jews 14, 46, 47, 67, 72,
235. 243



Pollexfen, Sir Hargrave .51, 52
Polly 110, in
Pope, Alexander 27, 29, 30,
31, 135, 264, 266
Popery 61
Popularity 74
Porter, Stephen 250
Portia 95. 97, 102
Portuguese Jews 45, 51, 84, 108, 114, 117, 128, 129, 157, 177
Potiphar 149
Pottinger, Israël 169
Pounceford, Squire 204
Prayer of Manasses .... 157 Premium 171, 173, 175, 179, 180 Pretender, The . . . 38, 43, 103 Pricke of Conscience, The . 126
Priestley, Dr 73
Prince of Angola, The .... 244 Prioresses Tale, The . . . . 13 Provoked Husband, The 107,
113, 212, 267 Prussian Vase, The .... 78
Quakers . 25, 49, 147, 148, 151
Queen Mab 247
Quick, John 169, 222
Rabaud Saint-Etienne ... 69
Rachel 61, 182
Racine 84
Rae, Fraser 167, 172
Raging Turk, The 83
Rake's Progress, A 120
Rambler, The 60, 142
Ramper, Jenny 37
Rape of the Lock, The ... 31 Rapine, Isaac, 37, 38, 42, 53, 120 Raspe, Rudolf Eric 69—70,
74, 144. 267 Ravenscroft, Edward .... 87
Reade 259, 267
Reasons for repealing the Sacramental Test in Favour
of the Catholics 26
Rebecca 80, 149, 185
Recha 236
Reed, Isaac 123, 124
Reed, Joseph . . . 121, 122, 151
Reformation, The 14
Refusal, The; or, The Ladies
Philosophy 20, 107
Regicide, The 205
Register Office, The 121—122, 151 Religues of Ancient English
Poetry 245
Rembrandt 115
Remorse 73
Renaissance, The 14
Rentless, Lady. . .181,183, *84 Rentless, Lord . . 180—181, 184
Reprisal, The 204, 205
Reproof 27, 37
Retaliation 219
Return of Tobias 109
Revue des Etudes Juives . . .185
Reynolds 206
Riah 42
Ricardo 139
Richard the First 13
Richardson, Samuel 51—53,
264, 266
Ritual child-murder .... 13 Rival Candidates, The . . . 206
Rivals, The 160
Road to Ruin, The 69, 222—223 Robert Maxwell', of, De Offerdood 250
Robin Hood 133
Robinson Crusoe 21
Roderick Random, The Adventures of 37, 38, 39, 50, 52,
120, 205
Rolle de Hampole, Richard 126
Roman J ews 36
Rousseau 67, 68
Rowe, Nicholas .... 100, 145 Roxana', or, The TJnfortunate
Mistress .... 19, 22, 23, 266 Rubens, Alfred 124, 125, 128,
129, 130, 131 Rule a Wife and Have a Wife
87, 130
Russell, Lord 231
Ruth and Naomi 109



Sacred Dramas .... 108—109
Sacrifice of Isaac...... 109
Saintsbury, George 85, 87, 168 Salisbury, The Earl of . . . 199
Salomons, Levy 193
Salvador, Joseph 133
Salvador, Francis 236
Samson 87
Samuda 139
Samuel, Wilfred S 124
San Marco Library 123
Sanchio 87
Sancho 84—94, 102, 166, 167,
168, 169
Sancho Panza 87
Sanco 87
Sanders, L 163, 165, 167
Saul 109
Saul and Jonathan 109
Saygrace 39
Schiller 73
School for Prejudice, The 255—
258, 261 School for Scandal, The 160, 165, 167, 169, 170—176,
180, 185, 197
Schröder, E 84, 90
Schultz, W. E 10
Schuurman, Anna Maria . .115 Scotsman's Remarks on the Farce of Love a la Mode, A
140—141 Scott, Sir Walter 21, 22, 25, 37, 38, 42, 43, 45, 75, 79, 80, 85, 87, 103, 166, 167, 168, 185, 198, 199, 217, 230, 234,
235. 236, 255, 259, 267
Self-Immolation 250
Sentimental Journey through
France and Italy, A . . . 54 Sephardim . . 129, 132, 139, 194 Serra, Moses Gomes .... 129
Shadrac 197—198
Shadrach 138, 149, 167, 233,
254, 266
Shadrach Boaz 187—188, 192, 243 Shadrach Moses . . . 213—214
Shaftesbury, Anthony, Earl
of 21
Shakespeare 59, 83, 84, 95— 102, 135, 145, 146, 168, 183,
185, 232, 259, 267
Sham, Aaron 107
Shaw, G. B 150, 153
Shelley 247
Shelton, Thomas 87
Shepherd's Lottery, The . . . 133 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley 98, 134, 153, 160—176, 180, 188, 196, 203, 213, 219, 264, 268
Sheridan, Thomas 141
Sheva 42, 43, 220, 224—240,
249, 251, 252, 253, 255 Shortest Way with Dissenters,
The 20
Shuckburgh, Charles . . . .109 Shylock 20, 60, 63, 70, 77, 83, 84, 95—102, 134, 135, 142— 146, 166, 172, 175, 178, 186, 193, 223, 229, 230, 232, 234,
247, 259, 260, 262, 268 Sichel, Walter 167, 168, 173, 176
Sicilien, Le 176
Sidney, Sir Philip 56
Siege of Jerusalem, The . . . 109
Silky . 222
Sir Harry Wildair 105
Sir Thomas Callicoe\ or, The
Mock Nabob 205
Skene, James 80
Sketches by Boz 35
Small, S. A 99, 145, 262
Smart, Christopher 56
Smith, General Richard . . .152 Smollett, Tobias 27, 32, 37—50, 51. 53. 67, 70, 72, 80, 120, 155, 198, 199, 203—208, 218, 220, 235, 256, 264, 266,
267, 268, 269 Snarewell, Mrs. . . . 121—122
Solomon the Jew 78
Solomons, Ikey . . 32, 34, 35 Solomons, Abraham 206, 209—213 Solomons, Levi . . . 209—-213



Song for the Wandering Jew 248 Song from the Wandering Jew 247 Song of Solomon, The.... 109 South Sea Bubble, The 20, 21, 107
Southerne, Thomas 87
Southland, Thomas 141
Spanish Jews 24, 41, 66, 84, 129 Specimen of Jewish Courtship, A 179, 185, 188, 195, 213—
215, 217, 233, 269 Specimen of Jewish Education, A, see Moses and Shadrac .
Spectator, The 19. 113
Speelkind, Het 250
Spirit of the Grotto, The . . . . 244
Stage Beau, The 11
Stage Irishman The .... 11
Stage Nabob, The 11
Stage Quaker, The 11
Stanhope, Philip Dormer, Earl
of Chesterfield .... 61, 62 Steevens, George. . . .110, 113 Sterne, Laurence 40, 51, 53,
54, 126, 185, 205 Stokes, H. P 14, 164
Strange but True Relation how
Mr. Edmund Curll, etc., A 29 Suett, Richard . . . 230, 243, 249 Summer's Tale, The .... 219 Surface, Charles . . 170—172,175 Surface, Joseph .... 170, 172 Surface, Sir Oliver . . 171—173 Surgeon's Daughter, The . . 103 Swearer's Bank, The .... 25 Swift, Jonathan . . . 21, 25—31
Tarson, Ribi 132
Taste 142, 147, 148, 155
Taylor, A. M 104
Taylor, William of Norwich70, 74 Teazle, Sir Peter . . . 170—171
Tempest, The 168
Terence 113, 219
Thornton, Bonnell 28, 40, 62,
63. 64, 142 Times Literary Supplement,
The 80
Tragedy of King Saul, The . 109
Transfer 148, 173, 174
Trapp, Dr. Joseph 109
Travels of Persiles, etc., The . 157 Travels through France and
Italy 48
Trial of Francia, the Jew, for
Rebellion 20
Trim, Corporal 54
Tristam Shandy 40, 53, 54, 185
Trithemins, Joannes .... 74 True and Faithful Narrative,
etc., A 29
Tubal 96, 102, 232
Tudescos .... 127, 129, 131 Twin-Rivals, The 105—105,
113, 135
Two Strings to your Bow 221
Umphraville 64
Uniform, Alderman 180—181, 183
Unzer 73
Upholsterer, The . . .155, 156
Valley of Jehosaphat, The 125—126
Vanderpelft, Mr. Isaac ... 48
Van Dieman's Land . . 32, 35
Vanbrugh, Sir John 92, 105, 106
Vaz da Silva Joseph 128, 129, 130 View of the Hard-labour BUI,
A 75
Violet, Thomas 93
Virgin Unmasked, The . . . 118
Voltaire 67
Vortex 207
Vossius 115
Waldron, F. G 196
Walpole, Horace 205
Walpole, Sir Robert . . 134, 144 Wandering Jew, The 241, 2r5—248 Wandering Jew's Soliloquy, The 247
Ward, A. W 255
Warton 194
Way of the World, The . . . 105 Webb, Mrs 199



Wesley, John and Charles . 68 West Indian, The . . 219, 224 Wewitzer, Ralph 188—189, 199 What d'ye Call it, The . . . 106
Whiston 29
Whitefield, George 148
Whitehall Conference, The 92
Widow of Sarepta 109
Wild, Jonathan 33
William the Conqueror 12, 13 William the Third . . 84, 93 Williams, S. T. 10, 176, 208,
224, 230, 231, 252
Wilson 192
Wilson, Mrs. Ann 109
Wilson, William 51
Wise, Joseph 109
Wiseman, Mrs. Jane .... 108
Wolf, Lucien 51, 245
Women Pleased 232
Wonder, A 167
Wood, F. T 99
Wordsworth, William . . 13, 248
World, The . . . 27, 61, 62, 194
Wrangling Lovers The ... 87
Wrinkle, Mrs. . . 200, 203, 208
Wycherley 167, 178
You never can teil 150
Young Quaker, The 116, 185—
188, 243
Zabulon 107, 108, 148
Zackery 58, 59
Zadok, Ribi 132
Zaluch 218
Zebede 187, 189—192
Zebulon 148
Zedekiah 74
Zerubbabel 121
Zimmern, Miss Helen . . 77, 78 Zorababel 118—122, 135, 156, 263 Zorinski . . . 185, 239, 241—244
Zorobabel 121, 122
Zorobabel Habakuk 121, 122, 151 Zorobabel, Jacob 156



STELLINGEN
i
Tegen de bewering van F. T. Wood in English Studies (XV, bl. 211), dat "Granville's Shylock was probably an exaggeration rather than a reversal of the Elizabethan Shylock", zijn ernstige bezwaren in te brengen.
II
Scott's Isaac of York in Ivanhoe kan bijna in geen enkel opzicht een oorspronkelijke figuur genoemd worden.
III
Het is niet onwaarschijnlijk, dat de figuur van Rebecca in Scott's Ivanhoe mede haar ontstaan te danken heeft aan Maria Edgeworth's Harrington.
IV
The Israelites is waarschijnlijk niet geschreven door Smollett.
V
In The Rape of the Lock (Canto II, r. 7—8) zegt Pope in zijn beschrijving van Belinda:
On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.
Calisch (op. cit., bl. 109) ziet hierin een bevestiging van "the popular fiction of the mercenary passion of the Jew." Deze opvatting is niet juist.
VI
Prof. Van Ginneken's bewering, dat Engeland in de zestiende eeuw vele Joden opnam (Handboek der Nederlandsche Taal, deel II, bl. 3), is waarschijnlijk onjuist.



VII
De Biographia Dramatica (Baker, Reed, Jones, II, bl. 166) merkt terecht op, dat Andrews' Dissipation onder anderen ontleend is aan Garrick's Bon Ton. Nicoll (Hist. of Late 18th Cent. Drama, bl. 134) twijfelt ten onrechte aan de gelijkenis tussen de genoemde blijspelen.
VIII
De bewering van Nicoll {Hist. of Late 18th Cent. Drama, bl. 174)» dat Foote's The Devil upon Two Sticks niet in verband staat met Le Sage's Le Diable Boiteux is onjuist.
IX
Er is geen reden om in zinnen als "She was happy to have somebody to look af ter", en "The Englishman has a national ideal to set against the German" (Kruisinga, Handbook, II, ist part, 5th ed., bl. 379) aan "to have" een zeer verzwakte betekenis toe te kennen.
X
Krüger's bewering in Beiblatt zur Anglia (Sept. 1908, bl. 271), dat op bl. 16 van Poutsma, Gram. of Late Mod. Eng., I, geen enkel voorbeeld staat, hetwelk bewijst, dat "to be sometimes seems to imply a getting into a state, especially when used in connection with words pointing to a future state," is aanvechtbaar.
XI
In de zin "Sword in hand, he faced his foe" (Onions, Adv. Eng. Synt., bl. 67) kan "sword in hand" bezwaarlijk opgevat worden als een elliptische absolute constructie, waarin het participium is weggelaten.
XII
In Characteristics of Women (n, bl. 38) schrijft Mrs. Jameson: "Desdemona does not accidentally drop the handkerchief; it is stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant of three



years old, whom he trains or bribes to the theft." Deze opmerking, die betrekking heeft op Cinthio's Hecatommithi (3e decade, 7e novelle), de bron, waaraan Shakespeare de intrigue van Othello ontleende, is onjuist.
XIII
In Othello, I, 3, 155, is de lezing "intentiuely" in Quarto 1 de juiste.
Quarto 1:
which I obferuing, Tooke once a plyant houre, and found good meanes To draw from her a prayer of earneft heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcell fhe had fomething heard,
But not intentiuely,
Folio 1:
Which I obferuing, Tooke once a pliant houre, and found good meanes To draw from her a prayer of earneft heart,
That I would all my Pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels fhe had fomething heard,
But not inftinctiuely:
XIV
In Othello, I, 3, 159, is de lezing "a world of fighes" in Quarto 1 de juiste.
Quarto 1:
my ftory being done; She gaue me for my paines a world of fighes; She fwore Ifaith twas ftrange, twas paffing ftrange; Twas pittifull, twas wondrous pittifuil;
Folio 1:
My Storie being done, She gaue me for my paines a world of kiffes:
She fwore in faith 'twas ftrange: 'twas paffing ftrange, 'Twas pittifull: 'twas wondrous pittifull.



XV
I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad
As, though on thinking on no thought I think,
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
Shakespeare, Richard 2, II, 2, 30 v.
De betekenis van de tweede regel wordt duidelijk, als men leest: "As, though I think on thinking on no thought."
XVI
Bij de beoordeling van een eindexamenvertaling H. B. S., Gymnasium of Kweekschool dienen fouten, die getuigen van gebrek aan inzicht in de structuur van de vreemde taal zwaarder te worden aangerekend dan die, welke wijzen op een beperkte kennis van het idioom.